And All the Devils Are Here
by Edhla
Summary: A serial killer with an obsession with Shakespeare is at loose in London. When suspicion falls on Lestrade's teenage son, Sherlock's loyalties are severely tested. *Season 3 AU*
1. Brief Candle

The dead girl lay face-down in the summer foliage, her purple dress unfurled like the petals on a violet. Once they turned her over, John thought grimly, they'd probably find very little left of her face. Severndroog Castle loomed above, and preliminary analysis of the scene suggested she'd fallen from one of its windows.

"Looks like she's been here a while... probably fell sometime yesterday evening, or early this morning. And I can tell you who she is," Lestrade said dolefully.

Sherlock, down on his haunches beside the body, looked up at him. "Oh, yes?"

"Yeah. Celeste Biondi," he said. "Fifteen or sixteen years old. She's... she was Matthew's... girl... person, I suppose." He shook his head.

"His 'girl-person'?" John blinked. In the five or ten seconds he'd devoted to analysing Matthew Lestrade, he'd come to the unformed assumption that in terms of romantic inclinations, he was "like Sherlock". Greg had complained on a few occasions that Hayley's love-life was aging him prematurely, but he'd not, so far as John knew, ever said a word about Matthew's.

"Well, she came around at the house a lot, but I don't think he was planning on marrying her. Shit. Poor kid – what a way to go." Lestrade pointed vaguely at her. "And then there's that," he went on.

_That _was the grubby scrap of paper on the girl's back, and a brief note scrawled on it with a wide-nibbed pen and black ink:

_She should have died hereafter_

It was viciously stabbed through by a dull, metallic object, and smeared with rust-coloured stains. John looked it over carefully. "That's one hell of a nail," he mused. "And it's driven right into the flesh. Jesus, he'd have had to have used a hammer or something to do it..." He hovered over the wound, making an effort not to touch it.

"Before death?" Lestrade asked him.

"Doubt it." John tilted his head to see it better. "A nail like that would plug the wound a bit, but if she was alive when he did it, I think it'd bleed more than this. What's the note mean?" He looked across at Sherlock, confidently awaiting an answer.

"Well," Sherlock said. "It's – "

"It's a quote from Macbeth," another voice broke in.

Sherlock shot to his feet and whirled around to see Sally Donovan standing nearby, both hands shoved in her jeans pockets. He gave her an annoyed, quizzical look.

"Well, you're not the only person who knows things, Genius," she said, grinning. "And you're also not the only person who has a Google app on your phone."

Donovan's tone had drifted to the _slightly_ more pleasant toward Sherlock Holmes in the nineteen months since his return to the land of the living, though she'd apparently swapped _Freak _for a disdainful _Genius._ She seemed in a better mood than usual this afternoon, despite the corpse in front of her; it was her first shift since arriving back from her three-week honeymoon. Strictly speaking, Sally Donovan was now Sally Mukherjee, but Lestrade had taken one look at her married surname and asked if he could use her maiden name at work. She'd readily agreed. Lestrade had bellowed "Donovan" at her so much over the past nine years that neither of them could imagine him addressing her as anything else.

"So what is this place, anyway?" John asked, by way of distracting Sherlock and Donovan from getting into a battle of egos. "Didn't expect a castle to be out here."

"Severndroog Castle," Sherlock announced. "Privately built in 1784. It was boarded up in 1988 and became derelict, but a restoration project began last year." He glanced up. "And there are no windows open up there," he added.

"There's a couple broken, though," Lestrade replied, looking up as well. He pointed. "Right in the middle of restorations, too. God, I hate vandals..." He glanced at Sherlock, who was looking disdainfully at him. "What?"

"She couldn't possibly have squeezed herself out of the gap in those broken windows," Sherlock said. "Even if someone were to force her, she'd be covered head to toe in lacerations and broken glass. No. She fell from elsewhere."

"You mean, she fell from the roof," John said dully.

"Yes, from the battlements."

"Do you think she was pushed?"

Sherlock glanced down at the dead girl again. "No," he said. "The angle, projection and positioning of the body are all wrong for someone who was pushed. But there are plenty of ways to compel a person to step off a roof without _pushing _them."

For a few seconds, there was little sound but the purring breeze in the trees above and the crunch of gravel under boots as Lestrade's team took stock of their newest case.

"What are you thinking, Sherlock?" Lestrade finally asked him.

Sherlock removed his gloves with a snap. "Well, provided you're right about her identity, we've been given a helpful shortcut," he said. "As for the perpetrator, I'd say you're looking for an attractive male between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Clean-cut, middle or upper working class, educated, articulate, and pleasant-smelling, so he was probably a non-smoker."

"Okay, I know my lines. What are you basing all that on?" Lestrade asked him wearily.

But for once, Sherlock seemed reluctant to elaborate and was already walking away, toward one of the squad cars. "You'll know when you see the forensic report," he said, without looking back. "Though I'm surprised you haven't observed it."

* * *

"So are you going to tell me what Greg and I should have seen?" John asked as they arrived at the Watson residence nearly an hour later. The car was in the driveway but, John noted gratefully as he fished the keys out of his pocket, Molly had remembered to lock the front door. So far, the case against Ross Harding hadn't compelled them to leave London, but the word _bitch _had been scratched into their car door ten days before while it had been in the hospital carpark.

"Not seen," Sherlock corrected him as they came into the hall. "Observed."

"Observed _what?"_

"You'll know when the report comes in."

"Fine, we'll do it your way again," John muttered. They'd reached the kitchen by this time, and he leaned over to fill the kettle. "You'll stay for tea, then?"

John had posed it like a question, but it was more of an order. Sherlock had already agreed, since Mrs. Hudson's death three months before, to eat dinner with John and Molly at least twice a week. Sherlock grunted in assent; leaving him to make coffee, John went upstairs.

He found Charlie in her crib, babbling away to Freddie, her toy mouse. Molly was fast asleep on the bed, still in her blouse, skirt and stockings. An elaborate get-up, for her. Earlier that day, she'd testified at a panel hearing on the case against Professor Ross Harding, something that had been looming over her for the past two weeks.

The evening was warm and she was sprawled out on the coverlet, her skirt crumpled and one arm brought up to her forehead, like a child's. He sat down on the mattress and gently nudged her awake. "Hey, we're home," he said. "Everything okay?"

"Yes... oh, yes," she said blearily, struggling to sit up. She put her hands against her forehead for a second. "Just... tired."

"Sorry to wake you, but you'll never sleep tonight. How'd it all go today?"

"Um, okay," she said, tweaking her stockings uncomfortably. "I mean, Professor Harding wasn't there, so that was all right. And the panel people were nice... but they asked me a lot of things I couldn't answer. They kept getting sneaky and asking me the same question five different ways to see if I'd change my story. At least, I think that's what they were doing."

John looked unimpressed. "Anyone would think _you_ were the one under investigation."

"I am, in a way. Mycroft said. He said if they think I'm just making this up..."

"You didn't _make up_ the fact that the authorities found Berrimer's specimen vaults full of organs they have no paper-trail for," John reminded her.

"No, I suppose not." She brushed her heavy cascade of hair away from her face and rubbed her eyes blearily. "Oh, Mel called this afternoon, too," she said, in more upbeat tones. "She wants me to be one of her bridesmaids. She's having Hayley as her maid of honour, but Greg's a bit upset at the idea of her organising a hen night, so she wants me to do it."

"So they've finally set a date?"

"New Year's Eve, like we all thought." She looked doubtful, but John smothered a grin.

"And did you tell her that you'll be the size of a house by then?" he asked. "The last thing you'll want to do is organise pole-dancing classes."

"Oh, I couldn't tell her yet," Molly protested. "And I thought you'd want to tell Sherlock first."

They'd told Charlie first, though, more than a month before, when John had taped a handwritten note to her crib:

_EVICTION NOTICE_

_Dear Miss Watson,_

_Due to the arrival of a new tenant, you are hereby ordered to vacate this crib by no later than February 25th._

_Love,_

_Mummy and Daddy,_

_Watson Family Planning Department._

By this time Charlie was loudly voicing her protests at being confined to said crib. John took her out and changed her while Molly went to the bathroom to splash her face; they reached the living room together, where John set Charlie on her chubby bare feet in the doorway. She tottered toward Sherlock for a few unsteady steps, then lost her balance and pitched forward, planting her palms onto the floor to steady herself. John set her upright again, and this time she made it to the sofa where Sherlock sat, fiddling with his phone and apparently not paying her the slightest bit of attention.

"She always walks to you," John remarked. "Never does it to me."

"I _make_ her walk," Sherlock said loftily. "You two get up and cater to her every whim whenever she points at something, providing no motivation at all for her to walk properly."

"I won't point out the fifty million flaws in what you just said." John glanced at Molly, then cleared his throat and sat down in the armchair. "Um, Sherlock," he said in lower tones. "We've got some news, actually."

"Yes, Molly's pregnant," Sherlock said distractedly. He was still concentrating on his phone. "That's been obvious for nearly two months. The ultrasound scans very badly hidden under Molly's handbag on the kitchen counter are a particular giveaway. The only real mystery is why you didn't decide to blurt out the news at Charlie's birthday party."

This had been nearly three weeks before. Sherlock had reluctantly attended, though he'd made sure to tell everyone that first-birthday parties were ridiculous indulgences, less about celebrating with a being who was barely sentient and more about congratulating the parents that a year before, one of them had performed a very common biological function. Boring.

Another significant glance passed between the Watsons. "Well," Molly said. "Yes, it was pretty difficult, keeping the news when we had a house full of people. But we sort of thought you should know first, before we told Harry and Greg and Mel and... well, everyone."

"You've not seen them?" John ventured. "The scans, I mean."

"Mmmmm... not interested."

John got up and retrieved the envelope. He took one out and handed it to Sherlock.

"No. Really not interested."

"You should probably look, Sherlock," Molly said, nodding.

Sherlock huffed, but he lifted the scan and examined it in the evening light filtering in from the kitchen windows. And then, for perhaps the first time in his life, he nearly choked on his own observation. "What the hell is that?!" he demanded.

"That's exactly what I said," John put in calmly over Molly's fit of giggling, taking it back and sliding it into the envelope again. "That's twins, due in the last week of February... don't look at me like that. They run on the mother's side... okay, fine, we'll talk about the case now." He slapped the scan down on the kitchen counter and threw himself wearily onto the sofa. "So," he said, glancing at Charlie who was standing by Sherlock's chair, clinging to it to support her wobbly legs. "A sixteen-year-old girl is found dead after falling from the turret of a castle undergoing restoration. And she had a quote from Shakespeare on her back. Either of you got a theory? Because I'm all out."

Sherlock stared blankly into space for a few seconds, then shook his head as if he'd just woken up. "Uh, the uh, quote literally nailed into her is suggestive, as is the fact that Lestrade knew her," he said quickly.

"Suggestive of what?" Molly asked hesitantly.

"Of the nine million people in London, the murder victim just happens to be Matthew Lestrade's girlfriend?"

"'Girl-person'," John reminded him. "From the sounds of things, it's a different thing to having a girlfriend. And even one in nine million is still a chance, right? Statistically?"

"You are a rubbish statistician." Sherlock looked over at Molly again. "You're actually serious, though? Twins?"

* * *

"Thanks for being so stand-up about this one, Jake," Lestrade mumbled once they'd pulled up in the driveway, in-gear, engine idling. "I called ahead and told Mel what's happened. She's on hand, but I've got no idea how he's going to react. You know he can be a bit..." He floundered for a second. "Well, you know. A bit odd."

"It's fine, sir."

"Don't give him any more details than I do, okay? He doesn't need to know it was gruesome."

Dyer gave his superior officer a brief, almost timid glance. On the job, disagreeing with the boss was so welcome it was almost a requirement for being on Lestrade's team. But this was different. The dead kid had been his son's friend. "Sir," he hesitated. "Can I just say something?"

"You're not on duty. Which means you don't have to call me sir, either."

"So if someone came and told me that Hayley had been murdered..." He looked away and swallowed. "I'd ask how it happened. They always do, don't they? The families. First thing, right off the bat, before it's even sunk in."

Lestrade twisted the engine off and pulled the keys out of the ignition. "Yeah, point," he conceded wearily. "But look, just... if anyone needs to tell him the details, I'll do it."

They found Matthew sitting at the dining-room table. He was sketching an oriental dragon motif onto A3 paper; the pencil was clutched awkwardly in his oversized, sunburned hand, but the lines flowing from it were delicate and laid with precision. He laid down his work and looked up as they entered, which didn't always happen. "Hi," he said casually.

"Hi, um." Lestrade stopped in the archway that connected the kitchen and the dining room. Behind him, he could hear Melissa pottering around, boiling the kettle and keeping a close eye on things. "Matty," he said, pulling up a chair beside his son and sitting down. Jake remained standing in the archway, as if guarding the exit. "There's something we need to tell you."

He mentally flinched. Telegraphing bad news by using phrases like "there's something we need to tell you" or "we have bad news" went against his training and thirty years of experience as the bearer of bad news. There was never a nice way to say it, and there was no point in drawing it out.

Matthew was looking earnestly at him, waiting for the axe to fall.

"Your friend, Celeste," he blurted out at last. "I'm sorry, Matty. She's been killed."

Something sparked up and then burned out in Matthew's eyes, as if two wires had touched. "What?" he blurted out. "Oh, _shit, _when? How?"

Lestrade opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted when his phone suddenly rang.

"For _God's sake," _he growled, fishing it out of his jacket pocket. Donovan. He turned and threw the phone to Jake, who caught it with all the skill of a field cricketer. "Answer that. Take a message."

Jake wandered out into the kitchen, and Lestrade turned back to Matthew. In the space of only a few seconds, his face had gone grey. "What happened to her?" he croaked.

"We're not sure yet. But it looks like she fell from Severndroog Castle sometime last night."

Matthew's gaze bounced wildly off the carpet, the tablecloth, the windows behind his father. Lestrade closed his fingers around his wrist. "Matthew," he said. "I need you to look at me, mate."

Matthew screwed his eyes shut for a few seconds, then opened them again and looked up. He withdrew his hand and scrubbed it over his face.

"I'm sorry," Lestrade fumbled. "I know – "

"But... no, Dad," Matthew broke in. "I left her there last night. And she was fine then -"

"You _what?" _Lestrade clutched his wrist again. "Wait a second. You were there with Celeste at the castle last night?"

"Yeah." Matthew shrank back against the back of his chair. "We –"

"Sir - "

"Jake, I am _in the middle of something," _Lestrade snarled over his shoulder. "It can bloody wait!"

"It really can't, sir."

Lestrade stopped. Jake had just called him _sir, _again, twice. Squeezing Matthew's shoulder, he got up and followed Jake out into the hall. "Make it quick!"

"Sir," Jake said wretchedly. "That was Donovan. The preliminary forensics are in."

"And?"

"It was the fall that killed her. And, um. They found signs of recent sexual activity."

* * *

**_A/N: _**_This is the ninth instalment of a series that begins with After the Fall, available on my profile. Feel free to proceed with this one, but do be aware that it is a series 3 AU, set nearly two years after Sherlock's return, and a lot's happened in the previous eight fics. You'll probably be awfully confused, so it might be easier if you start at the beginning._

_This is a reuploaded version of the first, which had an M-rating._


	2. The Taste of Fears

Lestrade snatched the phone receiver out of Jake's hand and pressed redial, waiting a few anxious seconds before the line reconnected. "Donovan?" he barked.

"Yeah." The dull roar in the background of Donovan's call betrayed that she was probably in a moving car, and Lestrade hoped for a moment that she wasn't actually the one driving. That's what the officer sitting shotgun was for; he'd told her a thousand times…

"'You free to talk?"

"Jones is driving. The Biondis have gone to the station in their own car."

Lestrade knew that once at the station, the officers there would ask the Biondis to sign a release for Celeste's autopsy, to be undertaken as soon as possible. Probably that night. He felt sick.

"Where are you headed now?" he made himself ask, just as if this were one of his usual cases.

"Vita Biondi gave us a list of some school friends of Celeste's, so we're headed out to round them up for interviewing now."

"Who laid out the preliminary forensics report?"

"Anderson, sir."

Lestrade hissed in dismay. It was something of a Yard joke that Philip Anderson was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, and perhaps he was, at most things. But as for forensics, he was top class and rarely made mistakes.

"Donovan," he said, "work fast. The second this hits Dawson's desk, he's going to give this case to another DI and throw most of my guys off the case. You… you know why, don't you?"

"Yes, sir." Donovan paused. "Is your boy okay?"

In their ten-year working relationship, Lestrade couldn't remember Donovan ever asking about the welfare of "his boy." Nor had she ever asked about "his girl", "the wife", "the girlfriend" or anyone else in his life. And in fairness, it had only been just before she took leave to get married that he'd even found out the bloke's _name -_ Rahul. It wasn't that kind of a working relationship.

"Not great," he said wretchedly. "I need to call his mother... Donovan, call Sherlock Holmes and get him to come with you when you do your interviewing."

"Sir –"

"Please, not more of this bullshit between you," he cut her off. "He sees things we don't. Call him. Do it quickly."

He remembered how Sherlock had walked away from him at the crime scene and suddenly, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Normally, the obnoxious prat would still be around, either taking up unofficial residence in his work office or standing right there in the kitchen, regaling anyone who'd listen with his wealth of knowledge…

But he'd known about… what Anderson had found. And he'd bloody walked away from it.

"I'll call him now. Just leave this with us, Boss," Donovan said, in tones that were very gentle for her. "We'll get this sorted out."

With a vague grunt of dismissal, Lestrade hung up.

Perhaps because time hadn't had a chance to jade him, Jake was an absolute godsend with shocked and distressed witnesses, and with a victim's family members. Melissa had by this time moved in on the scene as well. Glancing back into the dining room, Lestrade saw them both huddling over Matthew in a way that was loving and supportive and probably correct according to some textbook somewhere, and which was clearly annoying the shit out of the poor kid.

His thumb hovered over the phone keypad. Instinct was telling him exactly as he'd told Donovan: Call Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, his strong common sense was telling him to call Julie.

Matthew had gone back to Julie's house the night before, straight from the crime scene. If further investigation of Celeste's death involved a narrow margin of time, she might be her son's only alibi. And in any case, she'd be able to provide valuable information on what sort of state he'd been in when he'd arrived home.

As the line purred, Lestrade remembered with annoyance the incident of the wedding invitations. The week before, Hayley had shown him her mother's wedding invitations, inviting the recipient to the wedding of Mark Anthony Farrow (worthy of a snigger) and Julie Caroline Lestrade. He'd never before considered whether Julie still used his surname, and ordinarily, he'd told himself without conviction, he wouldn't mind about that. But the fact that she'd put it on an invitation to her second marriage had downright made his teeth itch.

"Hi," she said efficiently, opening the call. Not thrilled to hear from him, but past calls had generally opened with, "What?"

"It's me," he said. "We've got to talk about Matthew, now. He's about to be arrested."

* * *

Caitlin Trent tucked her crossed ankles behind the slats of the chair she was sitting on and scrubbed at her puffy, damp eyes with the heel of her hand. Her brother Edward, nearly two years younger, stood in the doorway. He'd folded his arms awkwardly over his chest and was looking around, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do next.

Sherlock hadn't had far to travel when Donovan's call had come through. The Trents lived only four streets away from the Watsons, though he'd left John at home wrangling with his strong-willed daughter and brushing up his knowledge on The Scottish Play. Now perched owl-like in an armchair in the Trent's living room, he bundled his coat around himself and leaned back, gaze flitting back and forth as he took in everything around him at record speed.

Ordinary teenagers, he'd noted with a little disappointment. Caitlin was a bottle-blonde, with brown eyes set wide apart in her face and a snub nose. Edward was round-faced, with a modest layer of puppy fat he hadn't yet shed and, Sherlock quickly decided, he probably sprouted obnoxiously cherubic dimples when he smiled. The children's stepfather, a dull, tired-looking financial advisor who'd introduced himself as Robert, sat on the sofa next to DS Lauren Jones. Seeing Edward's awkwardness, he rose and gestured him to the seat he'd vacated. Edward shook his head slightly.

"I know you," Sherlock said suddenly, addressing Caitlin.

She blinked twice and sniffled, tweaking her tissue between her fingers. "I don't remember," she said bluntly. "Who are you?"

It was a moment before Sherlock himself knew where he'd seen Caitlin Trent before. He and John had been leaving the Watson residence four streets away just a month or two ago when she'd blundered out from behind the neighbour's front hedge. John, backing the car onto the road at the time, had nearly hit her. He'd slammed the brakes on and got out of the car, giving her a lengthy, furious piece of his mind, while she stared at him like the proverbial deer who had narrowly avoided becoming roadkill. All biting, dress-sergeant stuff, until he'd got back into the driver's seat. Sherlock remembered how his right hand had shook as he put the key into the ignition.

"Never mind," he said dismissively. "Go ahead, Sergeant Donovan."

"Thanks so much for your permission," Donovan muttered. She glanced down at the brief she held, then gave her brightest smile to Edward, still lingering in the doorway. "Edward," she said. "Do you want to sit there next to Lauren while we talk?"

_Lauren_, Sherlock noted as he watched Edward reluctantly cross the room and sit down next to her. Nobody ever called DS Jones Lauren. Even Donovan called her by her surname. The Trent kids were getting the treatment usually reserved for the under-ten crowd. Jones even patted the sofa cushion beside her before Edward finally sat.

"So," Donovan said after clearing her throat. "We're really sorry about Celeste. And we understand that you're upset about it. But we do need to ask you some questions, before your memories get a bit muddled. Did either of you see her last night?"

Caitlin shook her head, without pausing to think about it, and her brother murmured "no" into his hand.

"And she was a friend of yours, Caitlin?" Donovan sounded so uncharacteristically soft that Sherlock coughed into his hand. "But she was in the form below you, wasn't she?"

"Yeah," Caitlin said. "We didn't really hang around each other at lunch or anything. We were in the Dramatic Society together."

Donovan glanced at Jones for a second. "Okay. The Dramatic Society – so you put on plays?"

Caitlin nodded. Sherlock, listening in with a great deal of irritation, mentally gave her points for not rolling her eyes.

"And you're currently midway through a production of Macbeth – don't ask me how I knew that," he sniped before Caitlin could express more than a second of surprise. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Donovan turn her head toward him, and knew what it meant. The exasperatingly dim woman was trying to signal to him not to reveal crime scene details. "So which part did Celeste play, then?" he went on.

Caitlin frowned and shook her head. "She didn't play anyone," she said. "She was in the wardrobe department. Made costumes, is what I mean."

"And you?"

"Fleance… it's a character. A boy's part," she admitted with a shrug. "But it doesn't really matter, 'cause we've far more girls in the group than boys."

"But there were boys in the cast, too?" Jones asked carefully.

Caitlin wiped her nose. "Oh, um, yeah, a couple," she muttered. "Matthew Lestrade was playing Macbeth."

"I'm in it," Edward suddenly spoke up. "I play Banquo. I – um. Well, I s'pose I don't anymore. But I'd have done a good job of it." He dropped his chin, muttering into his chest.

"Oh, will you stop being so selfish!" Caitlin suddenly sprang out of her chair. "Who cares about the play being cancelled? Some horrible person murdered Celeste! And you're a terrible actor, anyway!"

"Caitlin," Robert tried, in weak tones that suggested that "Caitlin" was probably the only admonishment she ever received.

"Did they?" Sherlock asked calmly from his chair.

Caitlin turned to him, cheeks flushed. "Did they what?"

"_Did_ some horrible person murder Celeste?" Sherlock glanced at Donovan, then clasped his fingers together and laid them in his lap in a sort of pre-emptive self-satisfaction. "Because I don't recall any of us ever telling you that Celeste was murdered."

Her mouth dropped open. "Well, of _course_ she was murdered! What are you all, idiots or something? Why would all these police officers be here if it was just, like, an accident?"

"Caitlin," Robert tried again. "You're getting very worked up – "

"Of course I'm worked up!" she shrieked, with such force that she took a great gasping breath before the rest of it would come out. "Just all of you leave me alone!"

Tear-choked, Caitlin blundered out into the hall. Robert went to go after her, but after a second, seemed to think better of it. They listened to her heavy, clumsy tread on the stairs and then a whump that suggested she'd either slammed a door or pitched something heavy at the wall.

"I'm sorry," Robert said, sitting back down and sighing heavily. "She can be strong-willed."

Sherlock's upper lip twitched for a second. No, that was _never_ going to do. Donovan wouldn't tolerate Caitlin's "strong-willed" attitude for much longer, even if the girl did have a good excuse for histrionics.

Donovan glanced again at Jones, and then down at her notes; Sherlock silently noted how tightly she held her mouth. "It's okay," she said.

"Robert," Sherlock asked, "what hand does Caitlin write with? No, I don't want _you_ to answer." He held up his palm before Edward could helpfully chime in.

Robert shrugged his thin, stooped shoulders. "Her right, I suppose. Don't most people?"

"Yes, you'll note that I didn't ask what hand _most_ people write with – yes, fine, what's the answer?" Sherlock turned to Edward, who by this time was practically leaping out of his seat in anticipation at being called upon.

"Her left," he said promptly, as if racking up points in a quiz show.

"That does explain quite a lot. And how long did you say you and your wife have been married, Mr. Trent?" Sherlock asked politely.

"Seven years next month. Why?"

"Sherlock, is this going somewhere?" Donovan raised one eyebrow.

Sherlock's lower jaw unhinged itself for a few seconds before he realised and shut it again.

"No," he finally said, huffing and turning his head away from her in contempt. "No, you're quite right. I often ask witnesses pointless questions for no reason. I'll shut up now."

Donovan turned back to the notes on her lap, though she didn't seem to be actually reading them. For a few seconds an extremely awkward silence filled the room, and they could all hear Caitlin still slamming things around upstairs.

"Go on, then," Donovan finally muttered.

"No, you go ahead, Sergeant."

"Really, just – "

"You're asking the questions." Sherlock's tones were icily polite. "Continue."

"Sherlock, will you – "

"My questions don't lead anywhere anyhow, apparently."

"Just stop acting like a bloody toddler, Sherlock, this is a serious case!"

"Both of you stop it, now," Jones said suddenly. "You do know who we're supposed to report disputes to? I don't think he's in the mood for any of this. Not today."

At this, even Sherlock had a rare flash of regret. Although not strictly speaking a Yard employee, he was now an independent contractor. Any disputes he had with Donovan during the course of an interview had to be reported to the managing DI and that, for the next few hours at least, was still Greg Lestrade. Lestrade hated paperwork at the best of times, and there was little chance that Jones would take pity on all of them and not report a petty squabble to him once she'd warned both parties to shut it. She was even more by-the-book than Donovan, if such a thing were possible.

"Edward," Jones said calmly, turning to him. "We need you to give us a list of people from the Dramatic Society. Names and phone numbers and addresses, if you have them, please."

* * *

_For God's sake,_ Lestrade pleaded silently, listening to Julie's quiet breathing on the other end of the line. _We always knew. We always knew right from when he was born that there was something different about him. But if_ _you start thinking_ _he'd ever –_

"Greg," Julie said, hushed. "Do you remember, when we were in fifth form, someone burned down the bike shed at school?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"And someone called up the local force about it. They said they saw you and Rich Ansell leaving the scene just as it started to go up in flames."

"They came out to the house to interview me." _And I just about starting crying like a girl, thinking I was going to prison._

"And your dad was mad as hell about it. He told them to get off his property, and come back when they had a warrant, didn't he? Because you told him that you weren't involved, and he believed you. And he never _stopped_ believing you."

Lestrade shut his eyes. How the hell had Julie managed to remember all that? It had even escaped his own memory, even though the shame of being accused of a minor, laddish crime he hadn't committed was partly what had galvanised him into joining the police force in the first place.

"Julie," he said slowly. "This isn't the same sort of thing as burning down a bike shed. You remember Celeste… skinny girl with long dark hair? She's been killed, and we're... they're... treating it as suspicious. I've just come from the scene. Matthew was out there with her last night, and the investigators are going to think…"

"Oh, God," Julie blurted out. The last part was muffled, as if she'd put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my God, Greg, they think he _murdered_ someone?"

"Just come over," was all Lestrade could trust himself to say. "As soon as you can. He needs you."

* * *

John sighed and faced the bookcase in front of him like it was pistols at dawn at the OK Corral. He was an enthusiastic reader, but only when he had his own choice of reading material.

"Molly," he called over his shoulder. "Do we even _have_ an edition of Shakespeare in this house?"

"Fourth shelf up," she called back from where she was stooped over the washing machine. "On the left, I think."

The brick-sized book John edged out was old, though hardly used. A bookplate picture of mallard ducks on a calm pond: _Ex Libris Molly Hooper._ John didn't need Sherlock's skills to deduce that it was probably an old high school textbook. He sat down on the sofa with it, thumbing through to the index page.

"Only about twelve more years and I can put you onto this stuff," he said darkly to Charlie, who was playing with a stack of blue and red plastic blocks on the hearthrug. What were the odds, he thought, that being the unofficial handler of the World's Only Consulting Detective would involve reading so much poetry? First _The Rubaiyat of Omar_ _Khayyam,_ and now this.

"What's the matter?" Molly asked him, coming in to see. She had a box of washing powder in one hand and her phone in the other, held out as if she'd just been using it.

"Where am I even supposed to start looking for this quote?" he wanted to know peevishly. "And before you get clever, we know what play it came from. Sherlock wants to know how it relates to the crime, but this may as well be Chinese for all the sense it's making to me."

"You're smart," Molly reminded him. "You passed the horrors of Organic Chemistry. You'll figure something out."

"I also dropped Shakespeare for a reason," he said, thumbing through a few more pages. "And even when they made me learn it, I still used cheat notes."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" She looked down at her phone screen again.

"Nothing, if you _have_ cheat notes. What's that?"

"Google… cheat notes. You might have thought of it, if you weren't so old-fashioned. There." She held the phone out to him. "It's awful, like we all thought. It's what Macbeth says, the first thing, when someone tells him that his wife is dead."

* * *

Lestrade had no sooner hung up the line than Hayley, now working for an insurance broker in the city, blundered in the door. She was exhausted but exuberant, and totally ignorant of anything that had happened. Another good use for Jake, to break the news and keep her out of this for the time being; Lestrade practically pushed them up the stairs together. Melissa was still with Matthew at the dining room table, but had apparently run out of meaningful things to say.

"It's okay," he heard her say as he came back in. "It's okay to be upset, Matty."

"Mel, could you, um…" Lestrade made a vague hand gesture toward the kitchen. She stood up obligingly, though he wondered if she was drafting another speech to him about saying what he wanted her to do instead of leaving her to guess. Listening to the sound of her bare feet on the kitchen tiles, he noted dully that she'd really left and wasn't eavesdropping. Matthew looked up at him in mute confusion, and he sat down heavily in the chair she had vacated.

"I called your mum, kid," he confessed. "She's coming over. It's okay, I didn't tell her about…" He stopped and cleared his throat, aware of Matthew taking note of every twitch of his face with his dark eyes.

"Okay," he said at last. "I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully. Celeste didn't die by accident. And the police are going to be bringing everyone who's seen her recently in for questioning, and that includes you."

"But can't you just question me?"

Lestrade shook his head. "Not this time. They won't let me work a case like this when I knew Celeste, and I can't interview a relative. So they'll give it to someone else to oversee, and once that's decided, they'll probably be here to talk to you this evening. Now listen, your mother and me and Mel - we're all going to help you. But I need you to tell me the whole truth about every single thing I ask about, okay?"

Matthew hesitated, then nodded his head.

"Did you have sex with Celeste last night? No, I'm not asking for fun." Lestrade heard his tone sharpen in response to Matthew's flinch, and he reproached himself. Of course the kid wasn't keen on having this talk. And that, frankly, made two of them. "It's important," he said. "Did you have sex with her?"

"Yes."

"And it was unprotected?"

"Uh."

_"Jesus,_ Matthew," Lestrade groaned under his breath. Every time. Every single _bloody_ _time_ Hayley left the house… well, no. _He_ wasn't the one asking her if she had protection in her purse, since Melissa had gladly taken over that awkward role a couple of years before. But in all his fretting about Hayley, it was Matthew. Matthew, his little genius, who was so _bloody stupid…_

"And she was willing too, yeah?" he heard himself say next - then recoiled at his own words.

"Dad!"

"No, you listen to me. Whoever interviews you is going to ask you about that. No, they're probably going to _grill _you about that."

Matthew covered his mouth with his shaking hand. "What do I do?" he asked.

"You brought your phone and laptop over from your mum's?"

He nodded. Lestrade took a deep breath.

"I need to see everything on them," he said. "And I mean _everything_. 'Cause whatever they're going to find – texts, photographs, emails, video - I need to see them first."


	3. And Direful Thunders Break

"What did you make of the Trent kids?" Donovan asked Jones and Sherlock, once they'd finished collecting names and addresses from Edward and had reached the squad car. None of them got into it.

"Boring." Sherlock lit a cigarette. "Well, go on, then, Donovan."

Donovan, visibly disgusted by the rancid puff of smoke that had just drifted into her face, raised her eyebrows. "What?"

"You were a teenage girl, once… I assume."

"Got a feeling you were more of a teenage girl than I ever was," she bit back. Sherlock's lip twitched.

"Caitlin's theatrics," he went on. "What do you make of them?"

She shrugged. "Not sure I'm a very good yardstick," she admitted, folding her arms and leaning against the car. "I probably would have thrown a fit like that over being asked to clean my room when I was that age. You, Jones?"

"I thought she was more upset about her play than anything else," Jones remarked. "Overreacting to what her brother said, 'cause she felt guilty about thinking the same thing. But I'm not real surprised about that. If she hardly even knew Celeste…"

"Yeah. Self-centred kid, but it doesn't mean she knows any more than she's saying," Donovan continued. "That stuff you were talking about, Sherlock. About what hand she wrote with."

"Yes, that had nothing to do with what hand she actually writes with," Sherlock said tersely, heaving a sigh that implied Donovan's remark had lowered his IQ. "Her stepfather. Oh, he's the last word in diligent parenting, but does he know what hand his own stepdaughter writes with? He doesn't. Edward couldn't _wait_ to tell me."

"So?"

"So there's apathy there, if not a downright estrangement. It's not simply that Caitlin's pushed him away while he's done his best to be friends with her. Even if she'd repudiated him, he should have noticed her dominant hand in the years since he married her mother." He took another drag of his cigarette. "So her outburst probably had more to do with the stepfather and the ruined play than anything to do with Celeste Biondi."

"But the play –"

"Oh, the play's a definite link, but not in the way you assume. Who would include such an incriminating quote?"

"Someone who has it in for Lestrade's kid," Jones said. Sherlock shook his head.

"No. Someone who 'has it in' for Matthew Lestrade wouldn't incriminate him in such a clumsy manner – this is a double bluff. Matthew's not stupid enough to quote a play he happens to have lead role in when murdering his girlfriend. Apart from the note, there's almost a complete lack of context for Celeste's death –"

He was interrupted by a sudden, muffled _bloop _from the direction his coat pocket. Fishing it out, he groaned.

_Hi_

7:42pm

'Hi'? What the hell was he meant to say to that? Christabel's texts were becoming progressively dimmer and more pointless by the week.

Since the first awkward phone call to Germany three months before, Sherlock had had very little contact with his mysterious half-sister. Certainly, she'd accepted the news surprisingly well, admitting she'd discovered years ago that she had half-brothers in England but had never investigated further. But she never mentioned her parents, beyond briefly affirming that her father was still alive in America. Nor, once she'd established Mycroft's existence beyond doubt, had she ever really mentioned him, either.

She had, however, agreed to contact with Sherlock, which had mainly taken the form of the odd text and email between them.

If Sherlock had anticipated discovering a female version of himself, though, Christabel Mohler was bitterly disappointing. She had inherited her brothers' height and dark hair but, Sherlock noted when she'd sent him a recent photograph of herself, she'd also inherited the beaky nose and closely-set eyes that had been their father's unintentional gift to Mycroft. Sherlock had scanned her photograph over more than once, identifying and discarding features based on whether they came from the Holmes side of her heritage or the unknown, maternal side: Bernier. Eyes and nose: Holmes. Chin and cheekbones: Bernier, or some branch of that family. Comparative height: Holmes. Complexion: Bernier. High facial profile: Holmes. Tendency toward weight gain: probably the Bernier side, since the Holmeses consisted mostly of sinew and bone, and Mycroft's tendency toward pudginess was a combination of appalling personal habits and his mother's genetics.

Then, he'd discovered, the woman's intellectual capacity was quite ordinary, too. She'd had a good education, judging from her fluent writing style in the one or two lengthier emails she'd sent, but she worked a disappointingly ordinary job in Human Resources for the DZ bank. She seemed to have no further ambition in life than to pay the rent on the apartment she shared with her German husband, Carsten, and play mother to two English Springer spaniels.

"Your girlfriend?" Donovan swiped at him.

Sherlock shook himself out of his reverie. Without even dignifying Donovan or Christabel with a response, he shoved the phone back in his coat pocket.

* * *

Sitting on Matthew's bed, laptop open on his knees, the reality hit Lestrade like a brickbat: this was a gold mine of character-assassination evidence for a prosecution team.

Over his career, Lestrade had learned that the difference between walking away from a trial and doing time was often what investigators found in your Google search history, or under "My Pictures." It had only been six months before that the tech team had found enough evidence on Peter Duff-Charles' laptop to hand him over for murdering his wife, Annette. Google searches were often the biggest source of incriminating evidence. When a hated spouse or parent was mysteriously murdered, variations on "how to commit a murder" came up with surprising frequency on their shared family computer. And then there were all those times he spent following up false leads, just because of some bonehead stupid enough to publicly say something like, "I swear to God I'll kill you" to someone who, as rotten luck would have it, really had been killed later. The Homicide and Serious Crimes Unit even had a name for those reports: Agatha Christies.

He glanced toward the closed door. _I should be down there with him, _he thought guiltily. _He's my son. I'm supposed to…_

He swallowed down on something. No, not now. Now, he was still so _angry..._ angry enough that he knew he'd say things he'd regret, if not give his son a good smack upside the head. Unprotected sex? What the hell had Matthew been thinking?

_Probably, not much. _Lestrade shoved aside the fact that his own youthful adventures hadn't always been the most careful ones, either. That had been in different times - less than forty actual years, but the world had changed so much since then. Nobody'd had to worry about getting AIDS, and if you got a girl pregnant, even that wasn't the end of the world.

But Celeste Biondi didn't have HIV, and she wasn't going to get pregnant, because she was dead. And Matthew's _My Pictures_ folder wasn't just full of scanned sketches of dragons and architecture… there was also a sizeable stash marked "Artistic Nudes."

And, Lestrade thought as he glanced up from the first scanned charcoal sketch, no prosecutors he'd ever come across ever went into the nuances between "artistic nudes" and "porn". Any sixteen-year-old kid with this on their computer would be immediately labelled a pervert. And most juries would probably go with that, unless they were all artistic-types.

The first few sketches, at least, seemed not to be of Celeste herself. An older woman, probably… in her twenties? Lestrade didn't recognise her from a hole in the wall, but then, Matthew's emphasis hadn't been on an accurate portrayal of her face.

Rubbing his forehead wearily with the palm of his hand, Lestrade looked around the room, trying to think his way out of this one.

Even though Matthew only ever spent a couple of days a week at the house, he'd forged a little home-away-from-home in the spare bedroom. He'd even managed to convince his father to spend one of his weekends off painting the room a dark bottle-green that clashed with the rest of the house but, he'd insisted, went with the claret-coloured bedspread. Matthew had always been neat and organised. The only hint of chaos was at his desk, littered with graphite pencils and the sort of blue paper that made Lestrade think of top-secret submarine plans in old James Bond films. One of his own paintings hung above the bed; something entitled _Dark Maria _and which seemed, to Lestrade's eyes, to be a meaningless blur of primarily cobalt-blue and black paint. The only other wall decoration was a periodic table on the far wall, which Matthew had gone to all the trouble of framing and putting behind glass.

"Why bother?" his father had asked him, watching him carefully level it months before. "You know all that stuff in your head anyway."

Matthew had looked back at him with, for a second, what had seemed like chilly reproach. "Because," he said, "because it's not just information. It's _art_."

Lestrade had thought initially that he meant the pretentious sort of university-student art he'd seen on far too many walls. Posters of Che Guevara from kids who had no idea who Che Guevara even was.

Apparently not.

"The way every known element in the universe can be summed up on a table and put on someone's wall," Matthew had insisted. "Don't you think that's art, Dad?"

If Lestrade had been perfectly honest about it, no, he _didn't_ think it was art. But since Matthew could draw anything, and his own stick figures didn't even look like stick figures, perhaps his son had a better grasp on "art" than he did.

So if Matthew thought drawings of nude woman in admittedly tame poses was _art, _his father believed him. It was just a world of wrong that no jury looked likely to believe him, too.

* * *

Julie finally arrived at the house twenty minutes later. Lestrade reluctantly went down to answer the door, and took only a one-second glance at her blotchy face to confirm that she'd been crying on the way there. She was dressed well in a peach-coloured v-neck blouse and white slacks, but her dyed ash-blonde hair had obviously had no more than a brush run through it before she'd left the house. Looking at her tired, haggard face, Lestrade briefly wondered when he'd last seen her without make-up on.

"Is he still here?" she asked wretchedly, without bothering with a more traditional greeting.

"Yeah, of course." He gestured for her to come in. "Through here."

He brought her through the hall and across the kitchen to where Mel now had Matthew sitting on the sofa, nursing a cup of tea. On seeing his mother, he set it absently on the floor and wobbled to his feet. She threw her arms around him.

"Mum, I don't know anything about what happened –"

"We believe you," she said hoarsely. "We believe you, Matthew."

Melissa quietly rose from her spot on the sofa and took Lestrade aside in the doorway for a second. "I'm not going to be difficult about this," she said in his ear.

"I know you're not."

"I'll stay out of it –"

"Yeah, I don't want you to stay out of it." Lestrade took a deep breath. "You asked me before we got engaged," he said with difficulty. "You asked me if you were part of my family or not – and you are. So I don't want you to stay out of it. Besides, you know how this works better than Julie does."

"I've been trying to prep him for what's going to happen if they take him to the station. Letting him know his rights about DNA samples and things."

Lestrade nodded.

"They'd be mad if they didn't at least get him to 'assist with their enquiries.'"

"I know," he said wretchedly. "But I think anything he does or doesn't say is probably the least of his problems just now. There are other types of evidence."

* * *

Julie spent the next half an hour nursing successive cups of tea on the sofa next to her son. Hayley, who still had a somewhat strained relationship with her mother, remained upstairs with Jake for the most part. When Lestrade finally coaxed Julie upstairs to the privacy of Matthew's bedroom, he passed Hayley's closed bedroom door; for the first time in his life, he wasn't particularly concerned about what might have been going on behind it. Once he'd ushered Julie into Matthew's bedroom, he shut the door behind her and picked up Matthew's mobile phone, sitting innocuously on the desk where he'd left it.

"Um, I need you to watch this," he muttered, pressing a couple of buttons with his thumb and holding it out to her. "Video… time-stamped last night. Looks like it goes for a couple of minutes."

Julie took it in her hand, looking up at him suspiciously. "Okay," she said slowly. "Why am I looking at it?"

"Because… because I watched the first ten seconds, and I need to know if it's what I think it is," he said, almost desperately. "I can't… look, just, please, look at it."

Julie sank down on the mattress, flicking the video on awkwardly. He watched her as she watched it, but her expression did not change in any way. From the other side of the room, the sound on the video was full of feedback and almost unintelligible, but he noted no sense of urgency or fear in the distorted female voice he heard. When at last the video ceased, Julie cleared her throat.

"Okay," she said, cupping her chin in one hand. "So it's a video of Celeste in some kind of a dirty, shadowy room, with bare floorboards. She's wearing a purple dress, and then she takes it off."

Lestrade groaned mentally. Exactly as he'd thought. "Do they…?"

Julie shook her head. "You can hear Matthew's voice, but you never see him. They don't do anything."

"And she looks… " Lestrade cleared his throat. "She looks happy, willing to be taking her clothes off…?"

"Greg!"

"Julie, will you _stop being so bloody naïve about this? _This is a _murder enquiry, _and depending on how hard the prosecutors want to throw the book at him, they've got enough evidence here to charge our son as a sex offender._"_

Julie startled, as if she'd been given an electric shock. "What?" she demanded. "How is this… she was sixteen, wasn't she?"

"Yes. And it's legal for sixteen-year-old kids to have all the sex they want, but the second one of them starts filming it, they can go down for creating child pornography."

"We need to delete this."

"What? Jesus Christ, Julie, _no!"_ Lestrade snatched the phone out of her hand before she could try. She pulled back in alarm; for a few seconds, they looked at each other in silence.

"The Met employs specialist tech teams for these cases," he explained in much calmer tones. "Nothing ever really gets deleted from a computer or a phone. They can still pull data from this. They can pull data saying that someone _deliberately tried to wipe the contents. _Do you seriously think they're going to think it was you and not Matthew? And exactly what good is that going to do, anyway?" He looked at the phone in silence for a few seconds, listening to Julie breathing into one hand. "No," he said at last. "No, this is good news."

"_Good_ news?"

"If she looks like she's having the time of her life, it doesn't give much of a reason why Matthew would push her off a roof less than an hour later, does it. The police are going to confiscate this, and his laptop. And we're going to let them take them…"

The sharp knocking sound from downstairs startled both of them. Someone was at the front door… someone from the Met. Lestrade knew that sound. There was a doorbell in plain sight of the front door, but officers were unofficially trained not to use them when they came to make an arrest. Hammering on the door panel created a much more intimidating sound.

"Don't get that!" he called down the staircase. He took the stairs two at a time, only dimly aware of Julie following behind. At last he reached the doorstep and threw the door open, finding Detective Inspector June Merivale on the doorstep.

His shoulders dropped. They'd given the case to Merivale.

DI June Merivale was a fixture of the Yard, having almost ten years active service on Lestrade and most of his contemporaries. A talented detective, she'd more than once been urged to go for DCI, and there were some in the force who felt she could easily become Commissioner. But she had never applied for a promotion, saying she preferred to work her own cases, not hide behind a desk and send detectives out in her place.

Did things her own way, Lestrade knew, but _did _them. She'd been highly praised eight years before for being able to talk a mentally disturbed woman out of throwing her toddler off the roof of a multistorey carpark in Smithfield. She was not, however, a soft touch, despite her gender, her three children, and her five grandchildren. She was unlikely to do Matthew any favours in the interview room.

"Hi," she said, a little bleakly. She glanced over her shoulder at her sergeant, Alan Peters, who obligingly took a couple of steps back. "I suppose I should go through all the formalities for why we're here."

"You've got a warrant, haven't you." It was not a question.

Merivale nodded. "I'm sorry, Greg," she said. "I'm just doing my job. Let's just get all this cleared up as soon as possible, okay?"

Glancing over his shoulder, Lestrade stepped down and shut the front door behind himself. "Listen, Merivale… June," he corrected himself, remembering her abiding dislike of being addressed by her last name. "Matthew's sixteen years old. His girlfriend just got murdered. And he's… not like other kids his age. Gets upset about _little _things. I know what your responsibilities are here, and I _get _that, but I'm asking you for a big favour."

She frowned suspiciously. "Which is what?"

"I want you to let me and Julie put him in the car and take him to the station ourselves, of his own free will."

"Greg-"

"If you arrest him, he's going to completely freak out," he said over the top of her. "Trust me – I've known this kid since he was born. He's… compliant. He likes to please people. Maybe a bit too much. So he's not going to cause you any grief in giving a statement of what happened, and his mother and I will see to that, too. But if you tell him he's under arrest, he may very well go into the kind of meltdown where he can't remember his own name. And what kind of an interview is that going to be? A waste of time."

She shut her eyes and exhaled, thinking this over.

"June," he urged her. "Come on. Please. If this happened to one of your sons – "

"Yeah," she said briefly, opening her eyes and returning to a practical tone of voice. "You know what? I'm thinking 'if Celeste was my daughter.'"

"Either way, you'd want a suspect to give a proper interview, where they can actually be helpful," Lestrade said. "He didn't do this, and we want to give him the best opportunity to prove it."

She glanced back over her shoulder. "I'm sending an officer with you in the car as an escort," she finally said.

"Which one?" he asked, wary. Her sending an officer like DC Pinari along with them wasn't going to help Matthew one bit.

"Sarah Draper. And that's my final offer, Greg."

He scrubbed one hand over his jaw for a second. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Bring Draper in, then. And, uh, June… there's someone else I want you to work with. Please. I'm about to call Sherlock Holmes."


	4. All Our Yesterdays

For the first three minutes of the car trip to New Scotland Yard, there was nothing but silence. Lestrade had relegated DC Draper to the back seat beside Julie, so that Matthew could sit beside him.

"Might actually get a parking spot at this time of an evening," he remarked casually over his shoulder, pulling down the sun visor and squinting into a sunset of flaming orange clouds. He glanced across at Matthew, who was staring almost unblinkingly at the shops and flats and people that zoomed by. Briefly, he let go of the wheel to pat his shoulder. "You've done nothing wrong," he said. "So you've got nothing to be ashamed about."

_Except maybe that video. _Lestrade set his jaw. Thanks to Sarah Draper in the back seat, he couldn't even give Matthew a lecture prepping him on how the bloody hell he was going to explain _that _to the investigators. Hopefully Julie had the good sense to shut up about it, at least with an officer in earshot. Julie was clever, but she wasn't familiar with the ins and outs of the law, and was prone to disconnections between her brain and mouth when upset.

"Is Mel coming?" Matthew asked, so low that his father could barely hear him over the sound of the engine.

Lestrade heard Julie fidget.

"Yeah," he said. "Right behind us, maybe five or ten minutes. She had some stuff at home to follow up with before she left."

And five or ten minutes, he reflected, would give Sherlock Holmes extra time to show up… and probably have one hell of a row with June Merivale. The woman who'd given them an escort to make sure they actually showed up at New Scotland Yard wouldn't be keen on allowing a civilian, no matter how well-known and respected, anywhere near her case.

* * *

_I wonder how keen Bill and Laura will be to babysit like this when we've got three kids under the age of two, _Molly thought grimly to herself, fumbling to put on her protective rubber boots prior to stepping into the morgue. She'd left Charlie, happy and sleepy, at the Murray's for the night. Their son Brynn was only seven months older than Charlie, and they'd said time and again that she was no trouble whenever they were both called out to work late at night and didn't want to bother Harry to babysit.

Now that the news was out – to Sherlock, anyway – there were quite a few people who needed to know before Bill and Laura, and the first of these was Sharon.

Professor Sharon Knowles had been promoted into the position of Acting Lab Director since Harding had been forced to step down in disgrace. For all of the administrative duties her promotion had given her, though, she was always a good sport about helping out where needed. Just then Molly needed an assistant, and Sharon was on hand, which settled it. She stepped in just as Molly was donning her scrubs.

"Evening," she said wryly. "I wish it were under better circumstances."

"So do I," Molly said. "I hate it when they're young, or, you know, died in a way that might have hurt. Um. Sharon, I do need to tell you some things before we start."

"Oh?" Sharon pulled her scrub-suit off the hook it rested on. "Fire away."

"Um. So you know I'm a little bit… involved? Well, it's a bit complicated, but this girl, she was the girlfriend of a friend's son. And, well, it looks like they think he was the one who did it."

"Okay." Sharon did not sound surprised; but then, Molly thought, why would she? She'd been "'involved" in quite a few of the corpses that came in and out of the morgue. "Did you know her?" she asked.

Molly shook her head.

"Do you know the son?" Sharon zipped up her suit and started searching around for a plastic cap to cover her abundance of red hair.

"Not very well." The last Molly had actually seen Matthew Lestrade had been at Mrs Hudson's funeral, and they hadn't spoken. She knew him mainly as a skulking teen who wandered in and out of the scene whenever she was over at Greg and Mel's.

"I didn't know either of them, so I think we can still let the science do the talking. Are you planning on going in there without gloves or something?" Sharon glanced down at Molly's bare hands. Or rather, her ungloved hands, since she was still wearing her engagement and wedding rings. Protocol demanded these be removed and locked away as part of her prep process before starting a post mortem, and she had never forgotten before.

"No," she said. "But, you still may not want me to do this, because um, I'm pregnant."

"Seriously?" Sharon raised an eyebrow.

Molly nodded. "Nearly twelve weeks now."

"Twelve _weeks? Molly. _You know you're supposed to check in as soon as you get a positive test and subscribe to The List of Things You're Not Allowed to Do."

Molly was already well familiar with the list of what were more professionally called Activity Restrictions to be cross-checked with her obstetrician. No heavy lifting, and there was now an entire list of substances she was no longer allowed to play with, gloves and masks be damned, just in case.

"I know," she said. "I haven't done anything that I'm not supposed to, though. I remember when I was having Charlie, my doctor said I was all right with autopsies as long as I didn't do any heavy lifting and there was no danger of, you know, contact poison or something."

Sharon sighed. "Okay," she said. "I'm not going to banish you to paperwork just yet, but you really should have said something ages ago. Let's get this poor kid done, and then we'll go through all that business. Also, congratulations."

* * *

"It's a perfectly reasonable request, Inspector," Sherlock Holmes remarked, taking his gloves off and laying them in his lap. "My role in assisting the police has been signed off by Commissioner Hale himself."

_So this is the annoying prat Greg Lestrade loves so much, _June Merivale reflected to herself, observing him from the other side of her desk.

For it was obvious Lestrade loved him, as fiercely and protectively as he loved his own children. Anyone who doubted it clearly hadn't been there during the Paul Doherty case; hadn't been there the day he'd called up every senior detective he knew and begged them for help getting the kidnapped Holmes back safe and sound. They'd not seen the state he'd been in that night, even booting a suspect, which he'd never been known to do before. They didn't know how, after Holmes had been recovered alive but seriously injured, he'd almost immediately applied for two weeks of leave so he could stay near him while he recovered. Payroll had granted it to him, despite the fact that he had two other active cases open at the time, and that sort of leave was really only reserved for incidents involving a detective's immediate family.

Greg Lestrade just wasn't the sort of person to unofficially co-opt Sherlock Holmes into his immediate family, just because he was clever and could solve cases faster than anyone else. There had to be other reasons, though Merivale had no idea what those reasons could be. By all accounts, Sherlock Holmes was an obnoxious, tactless dickhead.

He was also undoubtedly well-dressed, clever, and good-looking. And just now, seated across the desk from her, he was also calm and composed, the very essence of good breeding. A memory flashed through her of the last time she'd seen him, lying semi-conscious in the road the night he'd been kidnapped and recovered. Lestrade had draped his coat over him as he lay shivering and bleeding on the bitumen.

"I've still got the right to refuse your help, such as it is," she reminded him frostily. "The contract _allows_ you to work with the Met; it doesn't give you permission to crash any investigation you please." She flipped the first page of the paperwork in front of her and pretended to examine it. "Also," she remarked, "I don't believe I've been given a contract for John Watson."

Sherlock huffed, kicking at the floor in a way that reminded Merivale of her eldest son, Christopher, at his most impossible. "He's entirely trustworthy," he said through gritted teeth. "And on his way. His profession demands regular police checks, if that's any help to you."

"Be that as it may –"

"Oh, for God's sake." Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If you know nothing about me, Inspector, then you ought to be paying more attention. Over the past ten years, I have solved forty-two major cases for the Metropolitan Police. And I was assisted throughout by John Watson in twenty of those cases. His contributions are a matter of public record, and so is the fact that since my contract came into place, he has continued to assist me with the full knowledge of upper command, and without restriction. Now to save us both time, just tell me, are you going to force my hand into putting in a call to Commissioner Hale?"

For the next few seconds, Merivale sat deep in thought.

"You know how this works, Holmes," she said finally, putting the contract papers down on the desk. "I've had multiple reports about you, all saying the same thing – you like to think you're above the rules. You aren't. If you risk this investigation or prejudice any potential trial by telling Greg Lestrade, or any of his family, _any _restricted information, I will have you in court so fast your head will spin. You're not going to be Lestrade's little man-on-the-inside on this one. You will be assisting me, not him. And you will be signing legalities to that effect."

"Yes."

"Any mouth, any difficulty, the _slightest_ thing to irritate me, and I will throw you _and_ John Watson off this case. Is that clear?"

"Quite clear – " A furtive knock on the door behind him cut him off. When bidden to do so, John opened it a few inches.

"Sorry," he said to Merivale as she got up and crossed the room to him. "They said at the desk to just knock on the door. Detective Inspector Merivale, is it? I think we've met – John Watson." He offered her his hand and, after a barely perceptible pause, she took it. "Hi. Are the Lestrades here yet?"

* * *

"Julie," Greg muttered as they crossed the carpark, with Matthew walking ahead of them with DC Draper. "We might have to wait a bit before he goes in, to get a lawyer on the case. I've called Pam Greer. She's good with this sort of thing. Got a nice touch with the younger ones." He remembered how gently she'd treated Adelaide Bartlett, even when the woman's sobbing hysterics had ripped through everyone else's nerves.

"Okay." Julie was looking down at her feet, picking her way across the level concrete.

"And also," he said, "he's got the right to another adult in there with him, too. It's pretty much the law that he has to have one."

She gave him a doubtful glance, but he thought he saw something a little playful in it. "Try not to kill someone, Greg," she said, in tones that implied _please kill someone if you have to._

"No, I didn't mean me." He exhaled. "I want Mel to do it – for _professional reasons," _he insisted as she opened her mouth to protest. "I'm not playing favourites, and she's not in there as his mother. She's a forensic psychologist, and she's good at it. She knows Matthew pretty well, she knows how all this works, and she can keep her temper better than either of us can… " He suddenly held up one hand, signalling to Melissa, who was locking her car at the far end of the carpark. They both heard the distant bleep of central locking, and she he hailed him in return with one hand and hurried toward them.

"Such impractical shoes," Julie remarked guilelessly. "She'll trip over and break an ankle in those."

"What about those bloody platform things _you_ used to wear?" he protested. "Your old man used to make you change them every single time I came over to take you out. Look, please," he said a little desperately, while Melissa was still out of earshot. "She's trying to help. Let her."

* * *

"Here we all are again," Sherlock remarked drily, pulling off his gloves and putting them down on the interview room table. He'd managed to convince Merivale that his usual method of work was direct questioning, and had permission to proceed with Matthew while she took a mainly supervisory role. She hadn't the faintest idea how to refer to him for the benefit of the audio recording as they settled in, so had defaulted to an embarrassed sounding, _Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. _

"Matthew," Sherlock started. "When I first met you, you were, what, six years old?"

Matthew nodded.

"You need to talk, Matty," Melissa spoke up quietly from beside him. "For the recording. And just so we don't misunderstand you."

"Yes," he said, in a surprisingly clear voice.

"And you'll recall," Sherlock went on, "that it was early December, and you were telling me all about Santa Claus. And I told you Santa Claus was just a lie adults tell children to get them to behave at certain times of the year. You were upset. Your father was _more _upset. Do you remember what I told you after that?"

Matthew frowned, thinking hard for a few seconds. "No," he said.

"I likened telling the truth to the removal a sticking plaster. There are two main methods: ripping it off quickly, and easing it off slowly. I favour the quicker method, in both cases."

Matthew glanced uncertainly at John and then across at Melissa. "Okay," he said, clearing his throat. "But I don't really understand —"

"Ordinarily, the officers in an interview like this have a set method they use," Sherlock said, "depending on when and where they were trained, and how you react in response to it. Were this being conducted exclusively by detectives Merivale and Peters, they would probably spend a good hour or two coddling you, trying to make small talk, offering you tea and biscuits, lulling you into a false sense of trust before trying to make you contradict yourself and unravel your own story. I don't play those sort of games. Short, sharp truths. What were you doing with Celeste at Severndroog Castle yesterday?"

"You don't have to answer that," Pam told her client, just as Melissa glared daggers at Sherlock from across the table.

"No, you don't," Sherlock agreed. "Unless, of course, you'd like the forensics to prove you're withholding important evidence."

"Mr. Holmes –"

"Inspector Merivale, I have my methods," Sherlock insisted, holding one hand up to silence her. When she withdrew, he muttered, "I don't know how I'm expected to work with someone who is so utterly _ignorant_ of me and my work."

* * *

Almost from the moment the interview room door had shut behind them, Greg Lestrade had been pacing around the waiting room like a captive lion. Constable Brian Claymont was on desk duty and caught his eye every now and again, offering him a timid, polite smile, and Lestrade had found himself smiling back out of habit. _Oh, don't mind me. I'm just here on personal business. You know how it is when your kids get accused of murdering people. Difficult little bastards they can be in their teens, am I right? _Claymont was one of Alec McDonald's boys, though Lestrade knew him by sight as decent and hard-working. On his fifth aimless tour around the room, he finally stopped at Claymont's desk.

"Sorry," he said, shuffling. "I usually get coffee from the back tea room up there, but I don't have an access pass right now. Is there anywhere else…?"

Claymont got out of his chair, upbeat and alert. "End of the hall and to your left, sir," he said, pointing. "But a word of caution, it's a vending machine and the coffee that comes out of it is a right horror. I can get Hensley to make you some and bring it out. For your missus as well?"

Lestrade flinched. "The ex."

"Okay," Claymont said, pulling a wry face. "For the ex as well?"

"Both white, one sugar," he muttered. "Thanks, Brian."

* * *

"Just start from the beginning," Sherlock said calmly, and beside him, Merivale sighed in what sounded like relief. This was, at least, a little closer to standard police procedure than expecting an immediate tell-all. "Try to restrict things to what is _relevant_."

Matthew cleared his throat. "We went out on the train," he muttered. "Got off about twenty to three, I think it was. We walked across Shepherdleas Wood."

"Did you walk straight across?" John asked, scribbling idly on the notebook he'd pulled out of one pocket. "Or did you stop somewhere on the way?"

"Stopped on the way." Matthew looked down at his hands. "Um. I wanted to read some lines with her, for the play."

"Macbeth?"

Matthew nodded. Then, as Melissa nudged him again, he said, "Yes, for Macbeth."

"Which part were you rehearsing with her?" John asked, scribbling away again.

"Act, uh. Act five, mostly."

"Act five." Sherlock glanced at Melissa. "'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death'?"

"Yes," Matthew said, confused but eager to cooperate. "Yeah, that's part of this soliloquy in act five. I always have trouble with that part. Celeste was just there to hold the book and give me a nudge if I forgot anything."

"_Just _there?" John challenged him good-naturedly. "I think that might be stretching it, mate. Nice romantic kind of spot, down there."

Matthew shrugged. "I suppose so," he said.

"And I'd have thought you'd taken your camera, or your sketchbook, or something," John went on guilelessly. "God knows I would, if I were any good at that kind of thing. Just a thought. So what time did you get to the castle?"

"About… half-four."

"And you broke in, I imagine," Sherlock said smilelessly.

Matthew's gaze wandered to Merivale, who leaned back in her chair, massaging her temples. Sherlock Holmes might have been some sort of observational genius, but he had no idea in the world how to give a sane interview. "You're not going to be punished for breaking and entering," she said. "Because we don't care about that right now. We only want to find out what happened to Celeste, so we really do need you to tell the truth."

Matthew looked down at his hands, still smudged with fingerprint ink and traces of graphite from the dragon motif he'd been working on earlier. "I broke a couple of the boards off one window," he mumbled. "We weren't going to break anything, we just wanted to get out of the wind – "

"So you're asking us to believe that you were in an abandoned, semi-secluded building with your girlfriend for approximately three and a half hours, reading Shakespeare together, and doing nothing else," Sherlock remarked with contempt.

"No, we were –"

"Don't answer that," Pam Greer broke in, but it was too late; her admonishment hadn't quite drowned out the rest of Matthew's sentence.

Melissa put her face in her hands for a second, then put one hand on his shoulder, giving it a light pat.

"Where?" John asked calmly after the silence had run its course. "I mean, where exactly."

"The wood. The castle."

"Both the wood _and _the castle?"

Matthew nodded. "But that's okay, isn't it?" he asked, looking from Pam to Melissa and back. "That's not illegal. I left her there just before eight o'clock to get the train back…"

"That's hardly gentlemanly of you," Sherlock commented. "Why didn't she get the train back with you?"

"I don't know," Matthew insisted, looking again to Melissa for help; but her expression remained pleasant and neutral. "I didn't know I was supposed to ask!"

* * *

Julie sat with her head in her hands, staring at a random spot on the floor near her left shoe. Sinking back down into the chair two down from hers, Lestrade said and did nothing to break her solitude until Hensley had brought over a cardboard tray containing two cups and given it to him.

"Thank you," he told Hensley, who muttered something about it being no problem and then disappeared into the back office behind Claymont again. Gingerly balancing the tray of hot cups in one hand, Lestrade leaned over and touched Julie's shoulder with the other. "Coffee, Julie," he said blandly.

Julie looked up vaguely. "Sorry," she said, sitting up straighter. "Wool-gathering. Um. Yes. Thank you." She gingerly extricated the hot Styrofoam cup he held out to her from the tangle of his fingers, sipping it in silence. He cradled his in both hands, content to leave it be, until Julie broke the silence again.

"Are you really going to marry that little thing?" She was looking at the closed interview-room door, as if doing so for long enough would enable her to see through it.

Lestrade opened his mouth to give the first smart-arse reply to hand: _are you really going to marry that insufferable bore? _At the last minute, though, he stopped himself. He knew when Julie was being sarcastic, and this was not one of those times. _Little thing _had bordered on the affectionate. He cleared his throat. "Uh, yes," he said.

"She's very young."

"She's thirty, Julie." _Thirty next March. _"You were only twenty-two when we got married."

_"__You _were twenty-two when we got married," she pointed out.

"Yeah, and I don't know what the bloody hell I was thinking."

Julie smiled, a little wistfully. "I don't know either, Greg."

"But I like flatter myself in thinking I might _sort of _know what I'm doing this time around," he said. "Even if I –"

Across the hall, a young PC in uniform hurried over and knocked on the interview-room door.

"What is it…?" Julie asked as he got to his feet.

"Don't know," he muttered. "But something's going on." _Even the work experience kid knows you never knock on the door when the interview light's on. Not unless something's happened…_

The interview room door swung open and Merivale emerged; the PC whispered a few words to her. She put her hand to her chin for a second, then spoke a few words to someone back in the interview room and shut the door behind her. She and the PC wandered away from the door, both talking in urgent, sharp-edged hush. Finally, she sent the PC scurrying and went back to the interview room, stridently shoving the door open and letting it fall into place behind her. Within half a minute she emerged again, followed by the others.

"Lestrade," she said, as he and Julie came over to see what was going on. "We're granting Matthew conditional release for tonight. The desk sergeant has paperwork that you and his mother need to fill out regarding the terms of his release, and I want you to bring him back at nine o'clock tomorrow morning for further questioning."

"Wait," Lestrade said. He glanced across at Mel and then at Sherlock, but neither of them betrayed anything of what had just happened. "Wait. What's going on?"

Merivale groaned. "You know that's confidential," she said, "you're on a strictly need-to-know basis just now. Take Matthew home, and all of you get a good night's sleep. Come on, Peters, we haven't got all night."

This was odd. No, this was _wrong_. Lestrade knew that if he had been in Merivale's position, he'd have spent hours interrogating every aspect of that kid's life, for as long as the law and the parents allowed him to. Matthew had only been in the interview room for about twenty minutes.

"Oh, Christ," he blurted out. "You've found –"

"I said _leave it alone, _Greg." Merivale rounded on him, attracting the attention of every officer in a radius of thirty feet. "You're not a detective," she said in much lower tones. "Not now, not here. You'll be told what you need to know and when you need to know it. In the meantime, stay clear of this, okay? I'll see you back here at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

Lestrade looked at John, catching his gaze. He'd never ask John to betray the security of the case – but he didn't have to. John Watson was the most transparent person he'd ever met. Couldn't lie straight in bed. He gave a slight nod, perhaps an involuntary one.

_Shit. They've found another one._

"Please, June," he said. "You're taking those two with you, right?"

June looked despairingly at Sherlock, who so far had miraculously said nothing. "If either of you contaminate the crime scene or the evidence, or piss me off in any other way, I will have you escorted from the crime scene and into a holding cell," she said sweetly. "Come on, then. Hurry up."


	5. What Pain

John had often wondered about the cab drivers who shunted Sherlock and himself between cases. How much had their cabbie heard and understood that evening five years before, when Sherlock had taken his phone and deduced half his life from it? What had the dozens of others since then made of it, when their passengers had suddenly struck up a back-seat conversation about intestines and land mines and dominatrices?

Well, cabbies were paid to be discreet, he reasoned. Anyway, most of them had probably had worse passengers than the two of them discussing gory crimes. Ones who got up to all sorts in the back seat, or threw up back there coming home after a bender.

He thought wryly of the event that had more or less cut short his honeymoon – Molly vomiting, mostly on him, in the back seat of that cab in Paris. She could hardly be blamed for that one, with Charlie on the way. His thoughts reached the nagging anxiety that had been plaguing him for weeks. _We only wanted one more. How are we going to manage twins?_

He cleared his throat. "So he's innocent, then?"

Sherlock had been lost in thought, his chin resting on his hand. At this he stirred and looked across at him. "Of course he's innocent," he said. "What sort of a perpetrator would make up something so stupidly incriminating as his leaving a teenage girl to her fate, because it _never occurred to him_ to escort her home for her own safety?"

John frowned. "Yeah," he said slowly. "That… was a bit weird."

"No, it wasn't." Sherlock turned back to the window. "He left her there because he was expected home, but she never expressed a desire to leave."

"Why not?"

"Do think this one through."

"… Because she was planning on meeting someone else there," John faltered. "The person who killed her?"

"Maybe," Sherlock said. "Maybe the person she intended to meet came across her corpse some time later and just left her there, with no word – they didn't want to get involved. People don't, you know. Or maybe she intended to leave the castle alone and travel in the opposite direction to Matthew, for some reason."

"The perpetrator," John said. "At the crime scene, you gave a profile… but that was just based on who she might have slept with, wasn't it? Good looking, not too much older, smelled nice. Not exactly your most amazing deduction."

Sherlock smiled for a second.

"But she slept with Matthew, and you reckon he didn't do it," John went on. "And Celeste's parents said they were expecting her home last night, so what was she playing at, meeting someone there when she should have been on her way back?"

"Celeste's parents didn't report her missing until midday, and she'd already been dead at least twelve hours by then," Sherlock pointed out. "Obviously, she's made enough of a habit of staying out that they weren't alarmed when she didn't return for her curfew. I'm sure Harry always came home on time every night she was expected to."

John smiled wryly. "Harry turned climbing out of windows in the dark into a fine art form."

"I can imagine."

John looked down at his notepad, as if puzzling out his own notes could advance the case. Sherlock sometimes cracked things wide open by staring for hours at a collection of clippings thumbtacked to the wall at Baker Street. But _he_ wasn't a consulting detective, and he hadn't written down anything of great worth. Just useless scribbles, really, like _left at 8pm _and _broken boards._ "And now this new one," he said. "This new victim. Male, late forties. Completely different victim to Celeste, but they think it's another one from the same killer?"

"Clearly the same MO."

"Another note, then." John exhaled. "And the last one was handwritten. Are they analysing it?"

"Standard procedure. But it's unlikely to give us too many useful leads," Sherlock said. "Handwriting analysis is generally only useful if one has something to compare it to."

"Serial killers usually stick to the same kind of victim, don't they? And why all the secrecy from Greg, anyway? It'll be on the news tomorrow morning, if the media are doing their jobs."

Sherlock shifted in his seat. "You don't lip-read, do you?"

"No." John sighed heavily. "But I've got a feeling you're about to tell me that – "

"I do. And as we walked out the door, Sergeant Alan Peters asked Merivale what was going on. I saw, rather than heard, her response."

"What was it?"

"'One of Lestrade's boys.' Given Matthew is the only son he has, and we left him safe and sound at the station, the newest victim is a member of Lestrade's team."

"Shit," John groaned into his hand. _As if Greg hasn't got enough to worry about. _"Which one, do you think?"

"You just said it," Sherlock said. "_Male, late forties. _Only one regular member of Lestrade's team fits that description._"_

John thought this over for a few seconds. "Oh, God," he finally said. "Bob Thompson."

* * *

Sherlock had always said it, right from the beginning – each murder, and each murder scene, was as distinct and unique as a fingerprint. But the little white house they eventually pulled up at, now festooned with yellow police tape and flooded with harsh spotlights, seemed just like many of the other crime scenes John had attended in the last five years. There were a lot of unfamiliar faces about, though, since he'd never worked with anyone on Merivale's team. On getting out of the car he caught a glimpse of Philip Anderson in the open doorway, silhouetted against the light.

"Well," he said to Sherlock, gesturing. "At least we've got Anderson here."

Sherlock grunted, but there wasn't time to comment on Anderson's value as a forensic tech before he came forward and met them on the front step.

"Gear up," he said coldly, without any form of greeting. "All of it, Holmes."

Just as Donovan had defaulted to _Genius, _Anderson was now in the habit of addressing Sherlock as _Holmes. _John had never remarked on it, but in some ways, it sounded worse than _Freak. _Real public-school stuff, conjuring up a past world of wealthy, privileged bullies, with all the morals of a pack of wild animals. Anderson wasn't going to shove Sherlock face-first against a wall or hold him down under a scalding shower, but he'd sure as hell had fun smirking at the regulations he now had to follow.

Sherlock hissed, annoyed, but he'd been through this routine before. Neither Anderson nor Merivale were going to allow him past the threshold without his having full protective gear on. He looked back at John uncertainly, then took off his coat and scarf and gave them to the nearest PC.

"Mind those," he ordered. "And be _careful _with them." He took the protective suit Anderson handed him and started putting it on.

"Who's that?" John asked quietly as he did the same. A crying woman in her mid-forties was sitting in one of the squad cars; beside her, a policewoman was trying to put a blanket over her shoulders.

"Widow," Sherlock said bluntly. "Or close to it. No wedding or engagement ring. They're either separated or divorced, but she probably found the body - "

"Sherlock," Anderson said.

Sherlock looked up at him.

"Does Greg know about this?"

"Not yet, but it will only be a matter of time." Sherlock zipped up his suit and reluctantly took a pair of gloves from him. "They may even have someone out there tonight with the news."

"Well, if you want my advice – "

"I don't."

"You'll watch your mouth around here," Anderson went on, undeterred. "These officers – they're in shock. They always are when it happens to one of their own. We need your help, but if you say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, they're going to punch your head in for it."

"Come on, Anderson," Sherlock said, smiling wryly. "You've not noticed that we only ever bury saints?"

"For the time you're here at this crime scene, Thompson _was _a saint… Detective Inspector Merivale," he said deferentially as she approached into earshot. "Just prepping these two. We're acquainted."

"Yes, I know." Merivale's tones were so bland that almost nothing of her opinion of Anderson could be read from them. "And I'm told you two gentlemen are also familiar with this sort of violent crime scene."

"Uh, yes," John muttered, glancing over and seeing the disdainful expression on Sherlock's face. "Former army, in my case."

"Then you know what it's like to lose a fellow soldier, Dr. Watson," Merivale said.

John nodded.

"I didn't know Thompson, but some of the others here did. Remember that. I haven't had a look yet, but I'm told it's not a pretty sight in there."

* * *

DS Robert Thompson, aged forty-eight, lay sprawled on the kitchen floor on his back, one leg bent under the other at a hideously unnatural angle. Something viscous and sticky was splashed all over his head and face, and a swarm of flies writhed over his open eyes and in and out of his nose and mouth. His swollen, grey tongue poked out from between his encrusted lips.

A large white rectangle of paper was pinned to the front of his shirt. From the other side of the room John made out aggressive black lettering, just as the paper fluttered up on itself and hid them again.

John looked at Merivale. "I won't touch anything," he said. "Normally I just have a look…"

She shrugged. "Well, go on, then," she said, "have your look."

Flicking aside Merivale's contemptuous tone, John carefully edged forward to the body. At any crime scene supervised by Lestrade, he'd not had to keep "having a look" strictly literal, so long as common sense prevailed. But the thought of how Greg was going to react to one of his closest colleagues being murdered checked any temptation to try Merivale at her threat to remove both Sherlock and himself from the crime scene. Merivale may have told Sherlock he wasn't going to be Lestrade's man on the inside, but as people loved to remind him, he wasn't Sherlock Holmes.

He folded his arms against the urge to tweak Thompson's head to one side for a better look at his neck, or lift the paper pinned to his shirt.

"Judging from the looks of him, he's been dead at least thirty-six hours," he finally said. "Maybe as many as forty-eight, but I wouldn't think that much in this sort of weather." The August day had been warm, and even so late as it was, the breeze coming in through the half-open kitchen window wasn't chilly. "And we're only just finding him now?"

"Lives alone, and had the weekend scheduled off, I imagine. More importantly, it looks like he was already dead when Celeste Biondi met her killer." Sherlock dropped down on his haunches beside him and sniffed deeply. John recoiled. The room smelled like a lot of things, and none of them were pleasant.

But now he thought about it, there _was _an odd smell underneath the stench of faeces and urine and sweat and two-day decay. Something sour that he couldn't place.

"Cause of death?" he heard Peters ask over his shoulder.

He smiled grimly. "Impossible to say just by looking at him," he said. "But you see he's got cyanosis around the mouth, and I think the hands. Could have been asphyxiated, but there are no marks on his neck, and I think the note might be spot on for this one." He gingerly uncurled the paper on the dead man's chest to re-read the stark, swooping black words written on it.

_What pain it was to drown!_

"And not difficult to see what he drowned _in_," Sherlock remarked practically, rising to his feet and walking over to the sink. "The sink is still full of it." Bending forward so that his lips almost touched the stainless steel, he sniffed again. "Claret, mainly, if I'm not very much mistaken."

Now John recognised the odd smell that Sherlock, no doubt, had placed immediately. Red wine, of course. It was the vestiges of wine on the dead man's hair and face that had attracted every summer fly in London into the room. He glanced over at the open window, then back at the note pinned to the dead man's shirt.

No wonder there was a very young uniformed PC standing in the front hall who, while neither crying nor vomiting, sounded like he wanted to call his mother.

"I'll make it easy for you all." Sherlock turned back to face the room. "This is a quote from Shakespeare's play, _Richard III._ In context, it's a line from the Duke of Clarence, referencing a dream he had. Later in the scene, he is executed on his brother's orders, in a butt of Malmsey wine."

By now Sherlock had attracted the attention not only of Merivale, but of Alan Peters and several other attending officers. Anderson, too, stood in the doorway listening in.

"Okay," Peters said. He was a thin, sharp-nosed man in his mid-thirties, with temples that bulged through his thinning dark hair. "So what's that got to do with Bob Thompson?"

"Some sources indicate that, traditionally, a pig's head was pickled in each butt, or cask," Sherlock told him. "Rather an appropriate death, then, for a police officer who was very clearly an alcoholic - "

* * *

"Actually, Sherlock," John said, "I'm surprised Peters didn't hit you harder for that one."

"Oh, shut _up_," Sherlock growled, his voice muffled through the tissue John had offered him for his bloody nose. The pair of them stood on the street-lit kerb outside the Thompson house, awaiting the arrival of a cab to take them home.

"No, _you _shut up." John gestured to the house behind where the police were still carrying out their investigation. "That was our chance to help Greg and Matthew, Sherlock, and you blew it because you couldn't resist being a smart-arse."

"You don't suppose the victim's being a drinker is relevant when he was _drowned in a sink full of wine?" _Sherlock retorted. "If Peters would like to tell me how I can solve this crime without deducing anything unsavoury about the victim's private life, he's more than welcome to."

"Well, if it's any comfort," said a voice behind them, "I've just got Merivale to stand Peters down for putting your DNA all over a crime scene, Sherlock."

The both turned. Anderson had followed them out and stood a few feet away. He was still in his protective suit, though he'd pulled down the hood and taken off the shoe covers.

Sherlock was just then wholly absorbed in finding a bloodless spot on his tissue, and said nothing.

"And Gifford's on her way in," Anderson continued. "She's better at this than I am." He took a few steps closer and glanced over his shoulder, as if worried about being overheard.

"That's very comforting," Sherlock said dryly.

"I've heard they've arrested Lestrade's son for the murder of the girl," Anderson ventured.

"Not arrested," John said, seeing that Sherlock wasn't going to answer. "At least, not yet. But it's not looking good. He was the last person to see her alive." He wondered briefly how Molly was getting on with Celeste's post-mortem, and glanced briefly at his watch. It was getting late.

"Well, this surely puts a spanner in the works on that theory," Anderson said. "Did Matthew even _know_ Thompson?"

"I've no idea," John said. "I'm sure they'll ask him."

"And just what, exactly, is your interest in all of this?" Sherlock interrupted, icily polite.

"Not academic," Anderson said.

Sherlock snorted. "Oh, what a surprise."

"I consider Greg Lestrade a friend, if you really must know." Anderson glanced down at his shoes.

"A friend?" Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "I don't think he's ever mentioned you as one of his."

"No, but he wouldn't, would he?" Anderson said, suddenly eager. "When you faked your death, I nearly lost my job over it. But after he got back from his own suspension he put in a report to DCI Chambers, praising my past work and recommending they keep me on." He paused. "Do you get it? He thought it was my fault you killed yourself. He _told _me that, just after it happened. And then he helped me anyway."

"And you want to repay the favour by helping convict his son of murder."

"Oh, don't be stupid, what reason could he possibly have for doing this?" Anderson screwed up his nose in disgust at the idea. "And that's the other thing. Greg's son, one of Greg's close colleagues. Fill in the blank. Whoever did this might come for _him _next."

"The thought had occurred to me," Sherlock said shortly.

Anderson checked over his shoulder again. "You're going to have to work hard for Merivale to overlook this one," he said, dropping his voice. "I _told_ you to keep your mouth shut – just a second, Sherlock, before you get clever. You two got kicked out of this, but _I_ didn't. Everyone forgets the techs. We're not as visible as the detectives."

Sherlock shrugged. "So?"

"So don't you see? I can help you," Anderson said. "And don't pretend you don't get people to help you, and not just John or Greg. You were out interviewing this afternoon, weren't you? With Donovan and Jones."

"Oh, she's 'Donovan' now? I'm relieved to find your affair with Sally is over," Sherlock remarked. "I imagine her husband prefers it that way."

"Do you want my help or not, Holmes? Because I doubt you're going to be able to access crime scene details any other way."

Sherlock shut his eyes and exhaled. Beyond, at the end of the street, the headlights from a cab bounced into view.

"Baker Street," he finally said. "As soon as you can meet us there. _Don't_ text me. If anything ever comes of it, they may audit your phone."

Anderson nodded. "I've got to get back," he said as the cab pulled up at the kerb beside them. "Oh, and by the way, if anyone asks, I just abused both of you for contaminating my crime scene."


	6. At Odds With Morning

Hayley lay in the darkness, against the rise and fall of Jake's chest. Her knee-high stockings had slipped down and were digging into the back of her calves, and the waistline of her skirt had twisted around, but she'd taken neither of them off. Sometimes, she'd said to Jake just the week before, it was nicer to just lie there together.

"Do you know," she said at last, "I just realised. I don't even _know_ Matty."

Jake shifted slightly.

"Oh, no, I don't mean I think he did it," she corrected herself. "But I didn't even know he and Celeste were like that. I didn't think _he _was like that."

"Like what?"

"Like this. Like you and me." She ran one of her fingertips across the buttons on Jake's shirt. "He's an artist," she murmured. "A writer. Got that book coming out next month. But I don't have a clue what goes on in his head. Deep thoughts, I suppose."

"I think some pretty deep thoughts go on in your own head," Jake said. But she shook her head, her blonde hair tickling at his mouth.

"Not like him," she said. "He's a genius."

"Do you mind?"

"Sorry?" She lifted her head, her dark eyes searching out his in the shadowy room. "Oh. No, I don't think so. I minded a bit when we were little, and he started getting the same marks in school as I did, two years further down the totem pole, the little swot. But like Mum says, you don't know what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. I sometimes don't think he _likes_ being as clever as he is."

The crunch of car tyres in the drive and the bounce of headlights in her bedroom window proclaimed that either Dad or Mel, or both of them, had just come home. Reluctantly, Hayley got up so that Jake could. He fumbled around the carpet next to the bed for his shoes and slipped them on, then crossed the room and opened the door. The light from the landing almost blinded Hayley for a second as she followed him out and down the stairs to where her father had just put his wallet and keys down on the kitchen table. Before either of them could speak, Matthew brushed past her and on up the staircase, two at a time, in a heavy, clumping tread.

"Let him go, Hayley," Melissa said, a little flatly. She'd just taken her shoes off and padded into the kitchen, where they could hear her fumbling to fill the kettle. "You can talk to him tomorrow morning, okay? He needs a good night's sleep."

Hayley let out a held breath. At least they'd brought him home with them. She had never had to spend the night in a cell, but she didn't have to use much imagination to conclude it would be horrible.

"Dad," she ventured, "Jake's just going now."

Lestrade, who had watched Matthew go upstairs without speaking, snapped to attention. "Oh," he said distractedly, looking at Jake as if he had only just recognised him. "Sorry. I had no idea you were still here…"

"Just heading off now, sir," Jake mumbled, embarrassed.

"Well… maybe you might want to hang around for a bit longer." Melissa had just reappeared in the kitchen doorway and Lestrade looked across at her, as if silently asking for her help. "There's been some news on the case. I guess it involves you, too. They released Matthew overnight because they found a new body and had to rush off to secure the crime scene," he said slowly.

"Another murder?" Hayley blurted out, looking between Jake and her father. "Well, that means Matthew didn't do it, right? Because he was with us, and then the police…"

Lestrade shook his head. "Just had a call from Alan Peters – he reckons it happened _before_ Celeste. One of ours, Jake. Bob Thompson."

"Thompson?" Jake blinked stupidly for a few seconds. "But that makes no sense – where's the link there, sir? I don't think Celeste Biondi's likely to have moved in the same circles as Bob Thompson."

"More's the point, I don't think Matthew ever met Thompson," Lestrade said wearily, sitting down on the sofa and putting his face in his hands for a second. "As far as I can see, the only person who knew both victims is me."

"Sir… are they… is the killer trying to get at you, then?" Jake glanced apprehensively at Hayley, who suddenly reached out and clutched at his hand. "Us?"

"Peters says it's too early to call that one." Lestrade exhaled. "But maybe. I'd ask Sherlock Holmes, but from the sounds of things, June Merivale just kicked him and John off the case."

* * *

It was an hour of waiting at 221B Baker Street before Sherlock and John heard the knock on the downstairs street door. Sherlock flew down the stairs to answer it and let in Anderson. He was now dressed in his ordinary clothes, and looking dishevelled but alert.

"And?" Sherlock demanded immediately, leading him up the stairs.

"And I don't think June Merivale was the right person to get offside," Anderson said, just as they reached the living-room door. "I wouldn't go anywhere near her for a couple of days. Give her time to cool off… John," he said pleasantly, as John stood up and held out his hand to greet him.

"Thanks for coming," John said politely, as if Anderson were a run-of-the-mill client who'd contacted them via his blog. "Tea? Coffee?"

"We don't have time for a tea party." Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Fingerprints?"

"All over everything, of course, and not just his own," Anderson replied. Not quite knowing where to sit, he remained standing near the doorway, clasping one elbow awkwardly with the other hand. "But you'd expect that, even if he'd just had visitors over recently. They're going to be run, but I don't think we'll get much use out of them."

"What about the wine?"

"There were two big cardboard casks in the fridge and one in the bin. Two were empty, and one was half-full."

"No prints on those, I suppose," Sherlock sighed.

"No. Now apparently, Thompson's got two young boys, eleven and nine years old -"

"Yes." Sherlock went into the kitchen and fumbled through the cutlery on the sink before locating the plug and putting it in. Then he twisted the right-hand tap on. "The photographs of them on the front hall stand were lovingly framed, but six months old," he said over his shoulder. "They don't live there, and he may have only seen them sporadically. And you didn't bother interviewing the ex-wife, I suppose."

"It's not my job to interview anybody," Anderson reminded him. "But I did see her with one of Merivale's constables before I left… Matheson, I think it was. Anyway, it'll take a couple of days at least to run the fingerprints, and they probably won't find anything significant about them. If I was going to go and drown someone in a sink, I'd use gloves."

"You'd be a bit stupid not to," John put in.

"Quite," Sherlock agreed, twisting the tap off and turning around. "This was a very pre-meditated crime. Anderson, lie down on the floor."

Anderson blinked. "Sorry, _what?"_

"You heard me perfectly. I need to recreate the crime scene as accurately as possible to get a good idea of exactly what happened when Thompson was murdered. John, give me a hand." With John's help, Sherlock dragged the kitchen table out, creating floorspace near the sink. "If we imagine this is Thompson's kitchen, with the window and sink in approximately the same place, Thompson was found, where?"

Anderson pointed to a spot on the floor near the stove. Sherlock looked impassively at him; with a sigh, he pulled up his trouser cuffs and dropped down onto the floor. "Why am I doing this?" he asked, shifting uncomfortably so that he was slumped against the cupboard doors.

"Stop talking," Sherlock said. "You're supposed to be dead. And your legs are all wrong."

"No, _his _legs were all wrong. I can't recreate a broken leg," Anderson protested, tucking one foot under himself in as close proximity as he could manage. "Is this honestly helping you, or are you just doing it for fun?"

"A bit of both. No, left arm wider… like that. Now, what do you think, John?"

"His ex-wife said there was no sign of a forced entry," John commented. "So he must have let his killer in. They drowned him in the sink, then pulled him back and just kind of threw him on the floor, which is where his ex-wife found him. The fall is probably what broke his leg, but I didn't get a good enough look at it to say for certain."

"He had a mild blow to the back of the head, like he hit it on something as he was thrown down. But he was probably dead or close to it at the time," Anderson said from the floor. "I found blood and a few hairs on the counter behind him. Can I get up now?"

"No," Sherlock said, dropping down on his haunches beside him. "I'm still looking."

"There's something I really don't understand," Anderson went on, staying obligingly in the position Sherlock had put him. "And that's how whoever killed Thompson managed to actually _do_ it. You'd fight with everything you had not to go out like that. Yes, he was out of shape, but still reasonably young and in good enough health. But there was almost no sign of a struggle."

John frowned. "'Almost' no?"

"His fingernails had been recently broken," Sherlock explained briefly, getting up and stepping over to the sink. He patted the stainless steel lightly with his fingertips. "Okay, Anderson, stand over here," he said.

Anderson opened one eye, then both. He sat up and then got to his feet, looking justifiably suspicious. "Why?"

"I want to demonstrate something."

Hesitantly, Anderson took two steps toward the sink.

"For God's sake," Sherlock huffed. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to demonstrate just how easy it is to shove someone face-down into a filled sink without having to wrestle them into submission. Observe."

In one fluid movement, Sherlock kicked Anderson's legs out wide from underneath him; at the same time he grasped him by the hair and shoved him face-down into the filled sink.

"_Jesus_, Sherlock, let him go!" John exclaimed.

"Oh, relax, he's fine," Sherlock said, loosening his hold on Anderson's hair. The drenched man flailed for a grip on the kitchen counter, then slid down onto the floor beside, pushing his sopping hair out of his eyes. "You saw it, though. Kicking his legs backwards and pushing his head down immersed his mouth and nose immediately. His hands were preoccupied in keeping himself upright – he never attempted to defend himself against me. The sudden shock caused him to gasp while his head was under. Very easy."

"You could have just _told _us that," John remarked, pulling a dish towel off the oven rack and handing it to Anderson, still spluttering on the floor.

"I know," Sherlock said. "But demonstrating it made more of an impression. And was more fun."

"You nearly killed me," Anderson gasped.

"No." Sherlock looked down at him almost playfully for a second. "I can assure you that I don't _nearly _kill people. Hardly a pleasant experience, but then, we _are_ talking about a murder technique. A few more seconds with your face underwater, and you might be in a different predicament."

John rolled his eyes, but any reprimand that might have come Sherlock's way was interrupted by the trill of his phone ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the incoming caller ID. Molly.

"Excuse me," he muttered, "I have to take this." He wandered up the hallway and through the open door to Sherlock's bedroom, sitting down on the bed as he answered. "Hello?"

"All finished." Molly sounded weary. "For now, anyway."

"Okay," he said. "I'm leaving Sherlock's sort of… now…" He glanced at his watch. "Might make it home before you do, depending on the cab service. And it was the fall that killed her?"

She hesitated for a second. "Yes," she finally said. "She… it wasn't just her face that was all bashed in. When we tried to move her, she…"

"I get the idea." Celeste had looked almost graceful as she lay in the grass at the crime scene, but John had good reason to know that fall victims sometimes literally fell apart when first responders tried to move them onto a stretcher or a trolley. "What about the… sexual activity that Anderson picked up on?"

"I can't tell you if she said 'yes' or not," Molly said. "But there are no signs on her of force or violence. No defensive scratches or bruising anywhere I could see, and nothing came up under her fingernails."

He blinked. "Nothing at all?" he repeated. "I would have thought that whoever killed her would have needed to use force to get her up on the roof to begin with. How the hell would they have managed otherwise?"

"I think I know the answer to that," she said. "Analysis of her stomach contents showed that she'd drank enough rum to get her drunk – maybe really drunk - if she'd lived long enough for it to have all hit her bloodstream. And it was spiked with enough Zopiclone that it might have killed her, if the fall hadn't."

* * *

It was a longstanding lover's quarrel between Greg Lestrade and his fiancée: he did not, ever, _snore. _But as she gently coaxed him awake, he was just in time to hear himself for a second or two.

_Christ, _he thought foggily. _And she still wants to sleep next to me for the rest of her life?_

"Greg?" she said. "Seven o'clock, my love. Up you get."

This time he opened his eyes, staring blankly out through the gauzy curtains of the north window for a few seconds. All was gloomy outside. Rain pattered on the roof above and dripped in heavy globs off the eaves. "Oh, hell," he muttered, rolling over and then forcing himself to sit up. "You know, for a second I was hoping what happened yesterday was going to turn out to be a nightmare."

"No such luck, I'm afraid." Melissa snaked her arm around his waist and planted a kiss on his back. "Should I come in with you again?" she asked gently.

He smiled and turned to her. "You'd better," he said. "I don't think either of us are going to make it through this without you."

"You'd both be fine without my help, I'm sure." She ran her finger lightly down his nose, then gave it a quick kiss. "I'm going for a shower – I'll make it quick."

"You _never _make it quick," he griped at her.

"I think you might be impressed with me this time," she said as she shut the _en suite_ door behind herself. "You wake up Matthew and get all that organised."

"Breakfast?"

"Let's get something on the way," she said, her voice a little muffled as she pulled her nightie over her head. "I'm afraid I'm not in the mood for uninspiring toast this morning."

He smiled and got up, stifling a yawn into his hand and shuffling across to the bedroom door. There was nobody on the landing, but he could hear Hayley singing softly to herself as she made coffee in the downstairs kitchen. A draught of warm damp air and the scent of shampoo from the open bathroom door betrayed that she'd already been in, half an hour earlier than usual. Matthew's bedroom door was closed, and he crossed the hall and knocked on it.

"Matthew?" he ventured. "Up and at 'em. Seven o'clock."

He hadn't expected a salutation straight away, since one of Matthew's talents included being able to sleep for days on end if he was allowed to. But the silence from the other side of the door was nearly tangible. He knocked again, more loudly this time.

No answer. Hesitantly, he twisted the door handle and opened the door a crack, then wider as more of the room came into view. He found himself looking at Matthew's neatly made bed.

Not too much of a surprise. Since the age of seven, Matthew had done two things immediately on waking – made his bed and brushed his teeth, in that order. Lestrade clattered down the stairs to where Hayley was now sitting at the kitchen table, dressed for work and nursing her coffee.

"Where's your brother?" he asked her.

She raised her eyebrows and looked around, as if she expected to find him hiding behind the furniture. "I don't know," she said. "In his room, isn't he…?"


	7. As Two Spent Swimmers

On the days that Molly put in a full work day, mornings in the Watson household were usually chaotic, and most of the chaos came from Charlie. She had recently decided that she wanted to hold her own spoon and feed herself, a situation that usually ended up with more food on her than _in_ her.

"Charlotte, if you could possibly aim _some _of that porridge for your mouth, I'd be very grateful," John muttered, supervising the process with many an inward groan. So far it looked like he was going to have to wash cereal out of her hair.

"Um!" she said jubilantly, spitting up a glob of lukewarm porridge down her chin.

John smiled, inwardly reproaching himself for being so grumpy with the best thing that had ever happened to him. "Oh, well," he said mildly, dabbing at her face with a flannel. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, at least – "

"NO! MUMMY!"

John didn't need to turn around to realise that Molly had just appeared in the kitchen doorway, half-dressed for work and searching out her first cup of coffee for the day. Charlie flung her arms above her head, upsetting the bowl of porridge and flicking the gooey spoon onto the floor. "Mummy!" she shrieked. "No!"

Charlie already knew five words: _Mummy, Daddy, No, Um,_ and _Ba_, which could apparently mean anything from "oh, look, something interesting", to "bring me that toy immediately!"

"Oh, Charlie," Molly cooed, instantly melting.

John put his head in his hands for a second. This happened every single one of Molly's work-days. Charlie would see Molly in the process of getting ready to leave the house, knew that meant she was probably not going to be home for hours, and act like this was the end of the world. Her heartbroken tears would last until five minutes after Molly left, whereupon she apparently forgot her mother existed until she returned to her line of sight.

"Mummy has to go to work, Charlie-bear," Molly explained, letting Charlie blow sticky, porridge-y kisses all over her face and wipe sticky hands on her blouse. "I'll be home soon. You're going to spend the day with Daddy, won't that be fun?"

Before John could comment that it wasn't going to be much fun for _him _until Charlie calmed down, his mobile phone rang from the nearby kitchen counter. Frowning at the early hour of the call, he got up to it.

"Sherlock," he said, wandering into the front room so he could hear him better while Molly, still apologising abjectly for being the family breadwinner, slipped into the seat he'd vacated and started smothering Charlie with kisses. "Not _another _murder?"

"Lestrade called," Sherlock said without any other kind of greeting. "Matthew's gone missing."

John took a second to register what he'd just heard. "Sorry," he said. "He's what?"

"Run away, judging from the items missing from his room and the absence of any signs of a second person on the scene."

"Jesus, what's Merivale going to say?"

"Quite stupidly, Lestrade told her before he told me. Apparently, she said plenty," Sherlock said. "He's at the station now, being interviewed. Melissa and Hayley have gone with him. He asked me to… see about matters."

"I'll come over -"

"No, you won't," was Sherlock's inexorable response. "We need Molly there for Thompson's autopsy this morning. How is Harry?"

John blinked and took a step back. "Still off the sauce," he replied immediately. "But you're right, we couldn't ask her to babysit today."

Involuntarily, he put one hand to his mouth and swiped at it nervously. _How is Harry? _

Years before, he and Sherlock had worked out a series of codes and cues to use in case of emergencies. Since Sherlock couldn't care less what Harry Watson did on a daily basis, but it was a plausible question for a stranger to overhear, _how is Harry _had become the code for _I think I'm being followed. _And since Sherlock was speaking in code, he thought the phone conversation was tapped, too. Any reference to "sauce", whether Harry was on or of it, was a signal that John copied and would not pursue it further.

Sherlock had to work alone this time. Being accompanied by a companion with a lesser mind and shorter legs was almost a guarantee that he was going to be apprehended before he could find and recover Matthew.

"Get onto school and university syllabi today, John," Sherlock was saying down the line, jolting John back to the conversation at hand. _Syllabi. _Only Sherlock, and of course Mycroft, would come up with _syllabi _and not just fumble over _syllabuses. _"Find out if there are courses that teach both _Macbeth_ and _Richard III_. I also need to know if those plays are currently running anywhere in London and if not, the last time they were."

"Okay." John tried not to grimace.

"Oh, also," Sherlock said. "Vanessa Thompson has agreed to be interviewed. I'm sending her over to you this morning."

~~o0o~~

"So let's go through this again," Merivale said, shuffling the papers in front of her in a businesslike way. Lestrade, sitting opposite her in the interview chair, wondered dully if she'd blatantly try to intimidate him if he didn't spit out what she wanted. "When did you last see Matthew?" she asked.

"I told you," he said, bristling. "I've told you four times. When we got home from the station last night. He went up to his room. Mel said something to Hayley about leaving him alone until the morning because he had to get some sleep."

"You didn't hear anything from his room during the night?"

"No. For God's sake, I've told you –"

"And you said that his clothes were missing?"

He took a deep breath. "_Some_ of them were missing," he finally allowed. "His jacket and shoes, and I dunno what else, because I don't keep a running tab on the clothes in my son's room."

"Greg," she said quietly, with such sudden gravity that he looked up at her. "I know you're not going to believe me, so I'm not even sure why I'm trying to tell you this," she said, "but I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help Matthew."

Lestrade swallowed.

"Now, look, I'm used to this," she said. "Used to being called _bitch _and _whore _for doing my job. But you, of all people, should understand that I have to do this. I don't _want_ Matthew to be guilty. I want whoever killed a teenage girl and one of our colleagues to be punished for what they've done. Any police officer doing their job would treat Matthew the same way. And any police officer doing their job would pull you in once you started claiming he ran away."

"He _did _run away," Lestrade groaned through his hands. "June, my kid is in danger out there. I don't even know where he'd go, except for his mother's."

"You've no other relatives in the area?"

"My sister and mother live in Sidcup, but Matthew's not close to either of them. And if he'd shown up there, Pam would call me."

"Julie's family?"

"Her parents live in Evershot. Her brother and his wife live in Taunton," he said. "Before you ask, Melissa's mother lives in Oxford, and Matthew's only met her once. He wouldn't know where to go to her even if he wanted to. June, serious question. Can you answer me a serious question?"

"I'll try," she said cautiously.

"Okay. You're catching a train, and the timetable says the one you need to be on leaves at ten past five. You get there at eleven past five and you've missed it. What do you, I mean, what do _you personally,_ do?"

"Look at the timetable, see when the next one is, and wait for it," she said promptly. "Ring anybody I need to, to tell them I'll be a bit late."

"Yeah, and so would just about everyone else over the age of five. That happened to Matthew last April. He didn't sit and wait for the next service. He called Julie in a panic."

Merivale raised one eyebrow.

"Matthew said in his interview that he and Celeste took the train out to the castle, right?"

"Yes."

"What he might _not_ have told you is that Julie had to drive him to and from the station and make sure he and Celeste got on the right one. He's… he's like a kid with some things, June. And now he's run away, when he's not even sure how to catch a train properly."

~~o0o~~

The rain, which had been only a fine mist up until now, started to come down in torrents as Sherlock made his way up North Gower Street toward Euston Square station. Homeless Network. Right every time. A particularly diligent and reliable Network member, Sam Nolan, had just texted that he'd sighted a kid matching the photograph Sherlock had sent him, wandering up and down the Jubilee line platform and looking completely at sea. He'd promised to keep Matthew where he was – by force, if he had to – until "Mr. Holmes" arrived to take a look for himself.

One problem, though, was the two plain-clothes officers posted in front of the Seven-Eleven store a few doors down. They were obviously on his track, having followed him not-so-subtly from Baker Street earlier that morning. Merivale's people, he guessed, though another unit might have been assigned to track down Matthew Lestrade. Either way, Lestrade had been stupid to tip Merivale off before he'd called someone who could _actually_ help.

He stopped and lit a cigarette, unsure of what to do next, until he was finally saved by the sight of two of the Network – names escaped him just then – smoking near the doorstep of one of the flats across the street. He crossed the road to them.

"Mr. Holmes," one said cheerfully. He was a gap-toothed young man whose recreational habits made his twenty-four years look like forty-four. "All out, sorry."

"I'm not buying today." Sherlock pulled out his wallet. "But I have a job for you. Here's fifty. There's fifty more in it for you if you do it well. Behind me near the Seven-Eleven are two plain-clothes police officers. I need them gone."

Gap-tooth, as Sherlock mentally designated him, smiled at his companion, an unshaven man wearing his cap askew. "Reckon that can be done," he said.

"Good. Go and do it."

Sherlock, putting away his wallet, watched as the two of them made their way up the street in the direction of the officers, in step with one another and talking in low voices as they quickly made up a plan of action. It never failed to surprise him how eager the Network were to get up to these sort of gags, and Sherlock knew that it wasn't just the promise of a hundred pounds that did it. Everyone, he reflected to himself, gets bored sometimes.

The two men were nearly abreast of the two officers when abruptly, Gap-tooth pulled something off the coat of the other man and bolted toward the Crown and Anchor as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Hey!" the other yelled. "Hey, he got my wallet!"

He took off in pursuit, running directly in front of a blue Mazda that screeched to a halt half an inch shy of hitting him. Both officers hurried over, but before they could reach him he was off again. Gap-tooth, weaving neatly around a couple pushing a pram, disappeared into Drummond Street.

Once all four of them had disappeared from sight, Sherlock slipped into Tolmer's Square. Passing quickly behind the parked cars glistening with rain, he took the most convoluted, under-cover path possible to the train station.

~~o0o~~

Forty minutes later, Vanessa Thompson arrived at the Watson residence. She was not just by herself, but had her two sons in tow. The eldest boy was very like his mother – dark haired, with a full brow and pointed chin. But the younger, hiding behind a fringe of brown hair lighter than his brother's, was so much like his late father that John had a sudden flash memory of the bug-eyed, purple-tongued corpse on the kitchen floor and took a step backward in surprise.

"Hello." Vanessa spoke steadily, if a little wearily, putting her hands on the youngest boy's shoulder. Looking up at her, John recognised her as the crying woman at the crime scene. Tall, with a careworn face and still-lovely brown eyes framed in black kohl. She glanced at Charlie for a second.

"Hi." John juggled Charlie in his arms and reached out to shake Vanessa's hand. It was icy, but her handshake was firm. "John Watson. Vanessa?"

"Yes. Uh, these are my children. Robbie and Dean."

John ushered the family inside and reached out to shut the door behind them. As he followed them through the front passage and into the kitchen, he noted that neither of the children were acting as if they'd just lost their father. They seemed a little timid, but dry-eyed and calm.

"Do you boys want something to drink?" he asked awkwardly, glancing at Vanessa as he received a polite little chorus of _no-thank-you._

Both spooked. And that was no surprise, John thought to himself. Their mother was clearly mentally elsewhere. By now, Charlie was struggling against him to be put down. He lowered her onto the floor.

"This is Charlie," he said, trying to elicit some sort of response from the family beyond the uncomfortable shuffling and nervous looks. "My daughter."

Charlie toddled over to Robbie, or tried to. She made it halfway across the living-room carpet before giving up and easing herself down a little too gracefully onto her well-padded behind.

Vanessa smiled wearily. "Dean used to do that," she said. "Not falling down, exactly. Just, had enough, _sitting_ down."

"Dr. Watson?" Robbie ventured. "Could we please take Charlie outside to play?"

John glanced at Vanessa helplessly for a second. He hadn't expected her to bring the boys in the first place, and the discussion he'd planned couldn't take place in front of them. "Uh… okay," he said. "Just let me put shoes on her. And maybe stay under cover… the grass is wet, and she doesn't walk properly yet."

Once Charlie had her shoes on, he watched Robbie and Dean take her outside and shut the connecting glass doors between them.

"You haven't told them yet," he said immediately. It was not a question.

"No." Vanessa remained dry-eyed. "What am I meant to say to them?"

John glanced through the doors at the boys. Dean sat down cross-legged in front of Charlie, who pointed at something in the garden with the clear expectation that he or Robbie would immediately get it for her. "Yeah," he muttered. "I can see that. I'm sorry we have to ask questions about this so soon."

"Oh, go ahead," she said. "We were getting a divorce, you know."

"Yes." John cleared his throat. "But that doesn't mean you wanted him dead."

She raised one eyebrow. "I certainly didn't kill him, if that's what you're implying," she snapped.

"No, that's _not_ what I'm implying. But I do have to ask, do you know anyone who _would_ kill him?"

"No."

"No enemies, then?"

"Happy drunk," she said briefly.

"Sounds like someone I know." John shifted in his chair. "Vanessa," he said in different tones, "do you know anyone who goes to Highgate Wood School?"

She blinked in surprise. "No," she said. "No, we live in Camberwell. Robbie's going to Stockwell Park. Does…" She stopped for a second. "Is that where Greg Lestrade's son goes?"

"You've heard about that?"

"Everyone's heard about that," she said.

"Have you ever met Matthew Lestrade?"

"Not that I remember." She put her hand to her temple for a second, as if in pain. "Perhaps he was one of the kids running around at the staff Christmas party a few years ago, but I really wouldn't know. Why would _he_ want to kill Bob, anyway?"

For a few seconds, the only sounds were of Charlie ordering "Ba!" to the boys outside and shrieking in delight at the unexpected company and attention.

"Yeah," John said finally. "Exactly."

~~o0o~~

A hot underground breeze, reeking of fuel, slapped Sherlock in the face as he made his way onto the train platform. At the far end he spotted Sam looming over another person who, for a few seconds, was obscured from sight. Then Sam turned and Sherlock saw Matthew shrunk up against the tiled wall of the overhead staircase, his overnight bag clutched to his chest like a shield.

"Obliged," Sherlock broke in, offering Sam a handshake with a banknote tucked between his fingers.

"'This who you were looking for?" Sam asked.

"Not your business." Sherlock dismissed him with a vague wave of his hand and turned to Matthew, who was watching all of this curiously. "Well," he said cheerfully. "You and I are currently standing under the watchful eye of about fourteen CCTV cameras. You _really_ don't get the point of this "running away" business, do you? Follow me. Keep up."

Matthew had lived in London for ten years and knew many of its streets and features, but he never forgot his walk through the streets with Sherlock Holmes that drizzly morning. Avoiding cabs and, Matthew supposed, avoiding CCTV wherever possible, Sherlock led him on the most convoluted route he'd ever seen, through lanes and up and down staircases and across squares and around buildings. Over an hour later, Sherlock finally stopped at the junction of Snow Hill and Cock Lane.

"There used to be a ghost in Cock Lane," Matthew ventured, a little out of breath from the long, brisk walk. "Hundreds of years ago."

"Really?" Sherlock drew something out of his pocket and glanced at Matthew over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Did it die?"

Before Matthew could respond, he turned to a doorway and put the key in the lock, shoving it forcefully with the ball of his hand a few times before the sticky door gave way and creaked open. He pulled the key out with the same degree of force.

"What is this place?" Matthew asked.

Sherlock reached out and flicked the light switch on the right side of the doorway, which threw a weak, greenish glow over the room in front of them. The whole apartment was little more than one room; in it was a modest single bed with an iron frame, well covered with blankets that smelled slightly of mothballs. It led into a kitchenette that looked newer and better put-together than the one at Baker Street. There was a microwave and kettle and a bar fridge that hummed in a businesslike way. The lintel was so low that Sherlock had to duck his head as he went into the kitchen. Beyond it was a closed door that Matthew imagined would probably lead to a bathroom.

"Bolt hole," Sherlock said abruptly, after such a long silence that Matthew took a second to work out what he was getting at. He'd just realised that at least part of what he thought was the smell of musty bedclothes was actually the rain-soaked smell of the clothes he was wearing.

"Is there anything to eat?" he asked hesitantly.

Sherlock frowned for a second, as if the idea that Matthew might need food had only just occurred to him. Then he cleared his throat. "Well, obviously, I could find something," he said distractedly, opening a cupboard that seemed to contain not much more than olive oil, salt and pepper. "If not, I'm sure you'll survive until your father –"

"No, please," Matthew suddenly begged. "If you tell him where I am, they're going to arrest me…"

"What makes you think he'd tell Merivale where you are?"

Matthew frowned. "Because he has to," he said. "It's the law."

Sherlock, hand still resting on the cupboard door, stopped and looked at Matthew in silence for a few seconds. "You think so?" he said thoughtfully. It had never occurred to Matthew that his father might disregard the law for his safety and wellbeing. "Well." He shut the cupboard door and turned to face him fully. "That puts me in an odd position. What exactly do you suggest I do with you?"

~~o0o~~

"Did you notice anything odd when you went to the house last night?" John had, true to form, retrieved his pad and pencil, flicking through it before taking a new page. At this, Vanessa glanced up at him sharply.

"I mean," he said apologetically, "I mean, before you… uh. Before you came into the kitchen."

"Oh, I don't know," Vanessa sighed, putting her hand to her forehead again in a way that made John frown slightly. _Severe headache? _She certainly didn't look well, but that wasn't really a surprise.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"Didn't answer the door," she said, as if she hadn't heard his question. "I had a key, so I opened it and went in. Nothing in front… odd smell…" she trailed off, shutting her eyes. "I forget," she mumbled bleakly.

"Vanessa?" Alarmed, John reached across the table and gave her a short, sharp shake by one shoulder. Her head lolled forward a little, like a doll. "Vanessa, look at me… what's wrong?"

"Jus' tired," she slurred.

"Yeah, I'll bet." He tipped her chin up with one hand, gently lifting each eyelid with the other. "Did you take something before you got here, to help you sleep?"

Vanessa's response was non-committal. Before John could ask any more questions, he heard the glass sliding door open again. Robbie, wobbling slightly under Charlie's weight against his hip, crept in, looking at the scenario with wide eyes. He glanced behind him at Dean, still hovering in the open doorway.

"Is Mum going to die?" Dean asked in a little voice.

"What? No," John snapped over his shoulder without thinking. "Of course not, why would you think something like that? Robbie, can you get my phone? On the counter." He waved vaguely at it, taking Vanessa's pulse with his other hand. A little sporadic, but strong enough. Robbie handed him the phone.

"Thanks," he muttered distractedly, dialling in 999. "Could you boys do me a big favour and wait out the front to show the ambulance which house they need to go to?"

"Can we take Charlie, too?"

"No, mate, she's too little." He glanced over at where she was now happily stroking Toby's mottled fur, completely oblivious to the drama around her. "Don't leave the kerb, okay? Thanks. You've been a great help..."

The call dropped into emergency service, and he gave his full attention to the operator and his patient as the boys obediently filed out. Awkwardly pinning the phone between his ear and shoulder, he reached across the table and opened Vanessa's handbag.

She had made no attempt to hide the bottle of Zopiclone nestled between her wallet and phone.


End file.
